One Straw
by Porthos112
Summary: The 'Wedding' is past and the fallout is fallen, the dust is settling and Ranma is giving into the stress of his situation, or is he? A helping hand can make all the difference when hell hath descended on earth.
1. Chapter 1

'One Straw', crummy title I know but…..

Chapter 1

Disclaimer)- 'Attention all readers, it's come to my attention that my disclaimer has gone missing. It's long and wordy with a few humorous passages and answers to the name of Dis. If anyone happens to see it could you contact me and let me know where it's at? It's my only defence against legal attack dogs and I'm feeling kind of exposed here.' Looking down at feeling a breeze, 'Oops!' Reaching down and doing up fly, 'Okay so maybe not as exposed as I once was.'

Let the fic begin.

"Ranma Saotome! Pay attention, this is not your bedroom." Hinako Ninomiya was known for her patience when it came to dealing with the delinquents in her class, or at least the lack thereof.

Ranma blinked as he surfaced from the crook of his arm and looked at the teacher at the front of the class, and then in typical fashion chose to ignore her. It wasn't that he didn't want to pay attention it was more that he was too tired to do so, plus she could bore the tits off a bull with her inane drivel. He'd often felt wiped out after one of his more strenuous battles but this went beyond even that, this was bone deep fatigue, the first time he could actually remember feeling like this in fact. Throw in the fact that he hadn't slept well since his victory at Phoenix Mountain and it made even more sense that his head had given in to the forces of gravity and he'd fallen asleep for just a moment. The day before had also been possibly one of the worst he'd ever had to endure, what with the failed wedding and the screaming match that followed. As per usual it had all been deemed to be his fault, and everyone seemed intent to tell him so at the top of their respective lungs if need be.

After tossing and turning all night he'd come to the conclusion this morning that he was getting to the point that he was tired in a totally different way, he was tired of taking the blame for other people's actions. He was extremely tired of being used by everyone to justify their needs, Akane's need for a punch bag, Nabiki for the income, his father just used him indiscriminately and without a thought to the repercussions. Soun wanted the schools joined will they, nil they, and his mother didn't object to that goal as long as it saw her with grand-children. The Amazons were a totally different kettle of fish, they wanted him for his potential as a breeder, to them that was all he'd ever be even if he was the best warrior any of them had ever seen and would be an asset to their tribe. As for his old pal Ukyo, well he wasn't sure about her, the only time he'd asked her about the future she saw for the two of them she'd confessed that he'd be helping her run the restaurant, when he'd mentioned his martial arts she'd looked at him blankly as if to ask what on earth he was talking about. It seemed the only art she considered was the art of okonomiyaki, any other was beside the point, a waste of time and effort, and as such why would her husband want to do that. He blinked again as an eraser bounced off his head as the teacher stood at the front of the class tapping her foot in irritation an image that was totally ruined by the fact she was waving a super size lollipop around.

"I'm warning you Ranma you had better start paying attention in this class." Ranma being the consummate diplomat that he was and on a short fuse thanks to yesterday replied rather hastily.

"Yeah an what'cha gonna do bout it teach?" He slammed his hands down on the desk in front of him and waited for the expected response. It wasn't lost on those around him that the table legs sank several inches into the concrete flooring with the only evidence being the puffs of white powder that escaped the holes.

"That's quite enough you delinquent, Happo Go En Satsu!" She pulled a five yen coin out of her pocket and held it between her fingers as she called out the technique that had driven fear into the hearts of delinquents at Furinkan High School for the last year.

"So ya want my ki do ya? Well here ya go take it!" Ranma's usual response to hearing the dreaded technique was to power down his aura as much as possible before it washed over him, now he'd chosen to do the exact opposite. The students between him and Hinako Ninomiya scrambled to leave their desks and get out of the way. Which was fortunate as Ranma fired up his battle aura for the first time in memory, in fact the only person present who had seen it previously was Akane and then only vaguely. Sure the students had seen him annoyed before, but angry? No, he'd never been this angry, and unfortunately all the anger he'd suppressed chose that moment to break free from his restraint. The aura blasted out picking up tables and blasting them to the front of the room, papers that swirled in the maelstrom of energy ignited and added bright flares as they flashed to fiery deaths in an instant. Akane was stunned as her fiancé's aura quickly dwarfed her greatest efforts, not only that but instead of the cold control that he usually displayed this was like standing next to a blast furnace. Ranma pointed his open palm at his teacher and released a steady stream of ki into the sucking maw that the small coin had become.

Hinako almost sighed in relief as she realized that her coin could drain all of the incoming ki, she'd been frightened at seeing all that ki for the first time. As she expanded into her adult form she felt her personal reserves being stretched and the fear returned as the stream of hot ki didn't cease, she couldn't even use her 'Change return' technique until the ki stopped coming, and then her senses caught up with the fact that the coin wasn't remaining cool, in fact it was becoming uncomfortable to hold as it heated up with all the hot ki passing through it. Ranma stood up even as his teacher dropped the coin she'd used to drain him with now that it was starting to get to the point of singing her skin and changed his ki to his usual confidence based ki. He raised his other hand to join the first and leveled a low powered Mouko Takabisha at his currently adult seeming teacher blasting her back over her desk to land sprawled under the blackboard. He was angry yes, but he wasn't ready to kill anyone, yet.

Ranma walked towards the front of the class in time to hear her prediction that he'd be expelled over this, he just smirked as he addressed her.

"Don't bother getting up sensei, I know the way out," and sauntered from the room sliding the door closed in his wake.

Ranma left behind him a stunned silence, no one had ever witnessed anything like it, regardless of all the martial artists battling in the area on a regular basis, the only person present who had was Akane and she was presently backed up into the far corner of the room. She hadn't even reached for her mallet to deal justice to the baka like she normally would, she'd never seen Ranma act quite like this though. Several of the students rushed to get the nurse as others clustered around the downed Hinako, her fingers were going to need tending shortly as they were already a mass of white blisters from the intense heat. Laying forgotten and crushed on the floor the melted remains of her lollipop slowly congealed as panicked students rushed around wondering what to do.

Ranma walked down the hallway looking neither left nor right as he made his way to the stairs. He had an uneasy feeling as he approached one of the classes and craned his neck to look in to see Nabiki counting a small pile of yen notes. He briefly wondered what she'd sold to get the money, it couldn't have been her soul, it wouldn't be worth that much to anyone, before dismissing her antics. He continued down the stairs, and out into the yard knowing that it couldn't really be that easy but hoping anyway.

Sure enough out in the yard the resident Kuno was waiting for him, hakama flapping in the slight afternoon breeze, classic pose with his hand resting on the hilt of the bokken shoved through his belt.

"And lo, the mercenary was correct, the foul fiend runs from the mighty 'Blue Thunder' with his tail between his legs like the whipped dog you are."

"I'd shut your mouth Kuno." The only change in his expression as his anger peaked yet again was a slight tightening around the eyes.

"I listen not to the likes of you, you are not a man. You are a black hearted fiend that twists the loves of my life to his wicked desires. I shall vanquish you in the name of that love." He drew the hardened wood of his blade and held it in high guard.

"Yeah right." Ranma snorted as the larger boy made to thrust his blade.

"I strike…." He'd barely begun to move when Ranma blurred from sight and reappeared with his hand wrapped around Kuno's, with crushing force he pushed the hilt back into the samurai wannabe and listened in satisfaction as the boys breath exploded from him. His foot came around and swept the others feet out from underneath him as the palm of his left hand lashed out and connected with Kuno's sternum with a resounding crack as he flew back towards the perimeter wall. He hit it with such force that the concrete couldn't stand up to the impact and crumbled on top of the already seriously injured delusional boy adding even more injuries.

"So Nabiki screwed me over again huh? Looked like she made a fair bit of cash out of it as well." He turned around and walked back into the school building, he had some more business to attend to it seemed.

Nabiki looked down at the money she'd just earned, Kuno was such an idiot he'd pay exorbitant rates for even the simplest information. Who was she to argue with that kind of earning potential? It felt good to hold the money in her hand, but even better to count it. She rifled through the notes once more doing a quick count, yep still there, five thousand yen, and it was all hers. The teacher looked on knowing he'd lost two students for the rest of the afternoon, Kuno probably wouldn't make it for being in the nurses' office and Nabiki wouldn't pay attention to him while there was money to be counted. Like the rest of the class he was totally surprised when the door was ripped off its runners and went crashing into the back of the class, thankfully missing any of his students.

Standing in the door was Ranma Saotome, the expression on his face didn't bode well for anyone who got in his way, but he had to try.

"What's the meaning of this? You can't just barge in here and disrupt my class like….. this." He finished lamely as he tried to glower at the martial artist, but the cold light in his eyes quelled his faux outrage, the slightly bald man backed away gulping as Ranma stalked into the room with out making a sound. He walked over to Nabiki and stretched out his hand.

"What do you want Ranma?" Her eyebrow raise in a perfect Spock maneuver.

"I want that money."

"You and everyone else, but you've got Buckley's of getting any money out of me."

"I wasn't asking, I was telling you. There seems to be some confusion about how much crap I'm prepared to take as of this moment." Nabiki goggled at him as his words washed over her ears. This was Ranma? He must have been possessed or something, he wasn't that smart.

"You'll have to take it out of my cold dead fingers Ranma, and you don't have the guts." She sneered as she played her trump card, he'd never hit a girl and that was the only way he'd get it.

"Well fancy that Nabiki, maybe you should send out some invitations to your funeral." With a startled gasp her gaze flew from her currently empty hands to the five thousand yen he was fanning out for her inspection.

"You give that back right now Ranma!" She went to jump up but thought better of it as his aura became visible.

"Or you'll what? You gonna add it to my tab? Try it, you ain't getting a single yen out of me. Maybe you'd like to sell me out to all my rivals? Nah it can't be that, I mean you're too smart to repeat the same punishment over again, and you've already sold me out once today. You gonna take more compromising photos of my girl side? It's not like I'm smart enough to catch you at it, now is it? I suppose that leaves making my life hell. Gotta tell ya Biki it's just a little late for that. I'm already here, I just gotta figure out who's gonna join me. You volunteering?" Nabiki prided herself on her ability to judge people, most of what she did walked a fine line between too much pressure and not enough, and that old cliché about the eyes being the windows of the soul was as true as they come. The look in Ranma's eyes sent a chill down her spine and back up it as she felt the fine hair on the back of her neck rise as the guy she'd labeled a 'Martial arts jock' stared at her expressionlessly. Her eyes widened as she noted something behind him.

"Back off Akane." He didn't even bother to look around.

"Ranma no baka! Don't you threaten my sister!" Her mallet appeared in her hand and she started her swing only to have a ball of ki incinerate it just above her hand.

"You don't listen to well do ya Akane?" His cold blue eyes never left Nabiki, who was beginning to know how a mouse felt when it found itself looking into the dead eyes of a snake. Her knees started to quake as she reassessed the dupe she'd been ripping off for just over a year.

Akane on the other hand was incensed at her fiancé, he never took her seriously. She was good enough at martial arts, he should at least look her in the face.

"Damn you Ranma, why won't you take me seriously. I'm a martial artist too!"

"Whine a martial artist too!" Ranma mimicked her in a high nasally tone. "Oh I'm sorry Akane I know that should have been, 'I'm a martial artist too!'" His tone was no less scathingly sarcastic for all the fact that he said it right the second time.

"Fuck you Ranma! You will take me seriously!" She was beyond furious by this stage, she was just shy of the berserker she'd always threatened to become, but she held onto a fine margin of control.

"You want me to take you seriously? Fine have it your way Akane." He was still looking at Nabiki when he said it, so she understood the next words from his mouth were for her. "You'll keep, seems your sister wants to play." He straightened up to his full height of a hundred and seventy-eight centimeters and rolled his shoulders while he turned to face his on again off again fiancée.

"So ya want me to take you seriously?" He repeated. "You think you've got what it takes to face me down. You know me Akane, I only ever took one fight real serious and the other guy didn't walk away from it. You sure you want it? I got no problem making it three for three today." Ranma's expression never changed and she saw his eyes for the first time that day, she suddenly felt like she'd painted herself into a corner and there was only one way out and that was through him. Nabiki whimpered as she attempted to stop her sister from fighting this new Ranma, she'd never seen him or anyone like this. He was more like a monster than the easy going rube she remembered. How could one trip to China have made this much difference in his character?

Ranma watched as Akane gathered her tattered nerves and manifested another mallet, he'd never dodged her attack before even when he was watching it come at him. This time was different though, he didn't cringe, he didn't stutter out an apology, he just stood impassively as it approached and at the last instant he reached out almost as an afterthought and rested a finger against the striking surface of the mallet. Watching Akane it looked like she shimmered as the force of the impact against his finger was reflected back into her, if she didn't have her teeth clenched together she might have shattered them or bitten her tongue off. As it was the world seemed to blur for her as her system tried to absorb the force of the blow she'd unleashed, she'd once hit a wall with her mallet when she wasn't prepared and had hurt herself, this was several orders of magnitude beyond that. She could feel the pain in her arms, shoulders and back, and the distortion in her eyes was making her feel nauseous. Ranma just looked at her with utter contempt as she collapsed to the floor.

"What? That's it? After all that bragging, an you ain't got more than that? You aren't worth my time Tendo." He turned away. "Now I think I'm gonna head home, anyone else wanna try an' stop me?" He swept the room as everyone frantically shook their heads. "I didn't think so." As he left the room Nabiki was already moving to her sisters' side to help her.

Back out in the school grounds he was heading for the gate when a small round object headed towards him.

"Yo bein da bad keiki! I be havin to teach you de better manners, yah?" Principal Kuno wasn't prepared to have his coconut bomb batted back towards him with a negligent flick of Ranma's wrist. It went off in his face leaving him looking slightly charred around the edges as he continued his rant. "Yo been hurtin my Tachi!" He gestured to the perimeter wall where an ambulance had pulled up and the paramedics were working to clear the rubble so that they could get to the fallen kendoist.

"He had it coming old man. You wanna join him? Bank shot!" The Mouko Takabisha struck the principal in the chest and knocked him flying towards the gate. The crazy man just clipped the right hand gatepost in passing which corrected his trajectory enough that he landed near the back of the open doors to the ambulance.

"Ah well, like they say practice makes perfect." He chuckled to himself as he walked past the smoldering body of the head of House Kuno, the old man let out a groan as he passed as if to protest his leaving the school grounds but Ranma just chose to ignore him as he sauntered out into the real world.

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"Ranma Saotome! Pay attention, this is not a bedroom."

Ranma blinked as he looked at the teacher at the front of the class then groaned as a sense of déjà vu washed over him. Before things could get out of hand he stood up and headed for the front of the class.

"What do you think you're doing Ranma?"

"I'm going to Dr. Tofu's, I don't feel too good." Ranma felt fine really, there was just the over-riding urge to kick the ass of anyone who got in his way. He ground it under the heel of his self control as he looked at the diminutive teacher.

"You don't look sick to me, are you being a delinquent? Cause if you are I'll have to punish you!" She took a five yen piece out of her pocket and widened her eyes in surprise as she found herself facing a ball of ki larger than she was, being as she was so sensitive to ki she knew there was no way for her to absorb even a tenth of the energy present before it overwhelmed her. She knew that it'd get nasty if it came to that.

"I said I don't feel too well sensei," he said softly without any particular emphasis, Ranma's expression never changed as he regarded her, waiting for her next move.

"Now that you mention it you don't look too good, why don't you take the rest of the day off?" She watched in relief as the ki flickered for a moment and disappeared as he walked over to the window to leap out into the school yard. Before she could blink he was over the wall and running down the street, she didn't know where he was going and didn't particularly care as long as he wasn't staying here and threatening her with large amounts of ki. Akane watched in amazement as her fiancée threatened the teacher, then saw him smile as she backed down and let him go.

"Excuse me Ninomiya sensei, permission to find out what's wrong with my fiancé."

"Stay where you are Akane Tendo, one delinquent in the class is more than enough." She hadn't put her five yen away just yet. Akane stood up and moved to the front of the class.

"You don't understand sensei, I'm going." She manifested her aura and pulled it into a large ball of ki just like Ranma had done, one thing was missing though. Hinako Ninomiya could tell that this amount of ki she could handle easily, it was the same size as Ranma's had been but didn't have the same density. She smiled as she suddenly filled her loose dress much better and looked down at Akane's withered body.

"Now class where were we?"

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Ranma knew exactly where he was heading, Dr. Tofu had only been back for a few months but he'd already had to avail himself of the doctor's services on a number of occasions. Today was a little different as he didn't know what was actually wrong, he just felt uneasy with the flashes of déjà vu he'd been experiencing recently. That and the nearly homicidal tendencies he was feeling from time to time ever since the run in with Saffron.

The office used to be on his way to school and as such it wasn't too far out of the way, now however it was in the opposite direction but the lessons in school had been a waste of his time and so he didn't feel guilty at all for ditching them. It was also a possibility that his vision might come true if he stayed any longer. That thought amongst others frightened him, not that Ranma Saotome would ever admit to fear. Soon enough the clinic came into view and he pushed open the doors, a jingle announced his arrival and the receptionist looked up at him.

"Oh hi Ranma, Dr. Tofu is with a patient at the moment, though he shouldn't be long, if you'd like to wait?"

"Yeah thanks Yuriko, I'll just wait over here."

"Would you like some tea while you wait?"

"Nah but thanks for the offer." Ranma nodded politely to Yuriko which would have shocked many of the people at the Tendo residence. He moved over to the waiting area and picked up a fairly recent magazine to read, Yuriko went back to the files and answered the phone a couple of times. By time she was back in her seat Ranma was absorbed in the magazine and seemingly not paying attention to his surroundings.

"Hiya Doc! How's it going?" Ranma smiled without looking up, Tofu had been trying his favourite trick out once again, even though he hadn't succeeded in the previous month, he said it had to do with the challenge.

"I'm well Ranma, how about yourself? No new injuries to report I hope?"

"Nah nuthing like that Doc, you know me. Pretty much indestructible these days."

"Yes, indeed. So what do I owe the pleasure of your company to?" The older man straightened the glasses that had slid to the end of his nose with a finger.

"It's gettin worse Doc." Ranma didn't elaborate, Dr. Tofu was fully aware of the situation they were discussing.

"Really? I was hoping things might get better without the constant stress on you." He looked up at Ranma's snort.

"Yeah it might if I was stress free. You know what my life's like Doc?" Ranma's shoulders slumped a little before shrugging it off again.

"Unfortunately I do Ranma. I've got a little time till my next appointment, why don't you come into my office and we can discuss it in privacy?"

"I'd like that Tofu sensei, I always feel better after we talk." He smiled genuinely for the first time in days as his friend led the way into his office.

"So, I think the last time we spoke was over that mess with your mother. I'm glad that had a happy ending. So has much happened since then?"

"You might say that…." Ranma went into an in-depth retelling of his trip to China to rescue his fiancée from the Phoenix people and Saffron, and unlike with most of the people he'd spoken to he didn't need to carefully edit what to tell them. Dr. Tofu had one of the best collections of esoteric books outside of a university library, and even they couldn't match some of the rarer works he had in his possession. He was also unique in the way he approached it all, he'd read a great deal of his library and as he did so he made note of each subject, the rough page number and so on, he also had the volumes arranged on the shelves using a similar decimal system to most libraries. Instead of covering mainstream lines though the numbers covered subjects such as magic, potions, botany, so called mythical beasts, ancient geography (he'd found some fascinating ruins that way.), the list of subjects was almost as long as a reference libraries just much stranger. Since he'd known Ranma he'd managed to convert his written lists into a computer database so now he could run a search and a list of books with related material would come up. He called it the 'Codex Esoterica' and it had been invaluable in some of Ranma's escapades, or even filled in the gaps after the dust settled.

Tofu Ono carefully jotted down the book and page numbers he would be looking for when his day finally finished, it fascinated him when he was brought into contact with strange creatures, but to be honest being a chiropractor paid better in most cases.

"I see, so nothings really changed," he rubbed his chin in thought for a moment as he closed down his computer, he wouldn't need it for a while. "What happened at the wedding, I heard there was quite a ruckus with un-invited guests."

"Yeah you could say that. Let's just say that Mr. Tendo ain't too happy about his dojo being leveled, both the Kuno's brought weapons, not that Ukyo or Xian Pu were any better with exploding food. Then there was the fight over my cure, I didn't even know there was one until after Happosai drank it thinking it was sake. The ceremony was supposed to be a secret you know? One guess who told everyone, I hope she made a lot of money, cause I ain't paying for the repairs, even though she tried to blame it all on me. In fact the only ones not blaming everything on me are Khu Lon and Kasumi." After admitting that Ranma went into more detail about the wedding and the aftermath.

What had ensued would live in his memory for a long time. It wasn't the other fiancées turning up, it wasn't the Kuno's gate crashing, though he was going to pay that back at a later date, nor was it the betrayal he'd felt as all the other cursed men in the neighbourhood had made a mad dash for the casket holding his cure. It'd been a combination of those things added to the screaming match that'd happened right after the smoke and dust started to settle.. That was when the accusations had started to fly and he'd discovered that even though it had been Nabiki who'd issued invitations to the rival fiancées and his rivals that it was his fault that every whack job in Nerima had turned up at the ceremony. He was responsible for the fact that Ryoga had taken out the roof with a Shi Shi Hokoudan. That Ukyo had taken out the East wall and part of the North with her exploding okonomiyaki, and Xian Pu's entrance through the South wall hadn't done much for its stability once the roof and East wall were gone, then the shockwave from Ukyo's attacks had demolished the rest of it. He'd only just managed to save the Tendo shrine from the destruction of the dojo. Had anyone thanked him for doing that, hell no, that'd be asking too much. Nabiki's only contribution to the 'discussion' afterwards was to tally the expected damages and present 'him' with the bill, the whole bill and nothing but the bill. There hadn't even been an attempt to discuss collecting payment from the other combatants. Akane had been on hand with mallet in hand for both the attack and the screaming match, and Ranma was thoroughly sick of being hit with and for other people's faults.

The pig-railed martial artist had spent the night awake thinking about the situation as it currently stood. Ukyo it seemed was missing from school that morning, he was pretty sure he didn't give a damn as to why either. She'd obviously made a choice the day before, he'd offered her friendship, the only thing he'd been prepared to offer at the time and she'd thrown it back in his face with a vengeance. The only other thing that could stress him more was the look of disappointment on his mothers face when she saw the chaos descend on her son.

Dr. Tofu stared at Ranma when he finally ground to a halt.

"What?" Ranma asked.

"I'm surprised you haven't snapped and killed someone yet."

"I'm thinking about it Doc. I dunno, I may not get a choice if I keep havin these dream things."

"Well they're not dreams, and the toxicology report came back blank so it can't be that."

"Huh?"

"You remember the blood sample I took? Well the hospital I'm affiliated with ran extensive tests on it and came up negative. Sometimes chemicals can cause strange mental problems, and though it was unlikely I had to make sure that wasn't what was happening to you. There's a drug called LSD that was quite popular in the sixties and seventies that left traces on the walls of veins after prolonged use, even when the people using the drug gave it up they'd have hallucinatory episodes for decades as the traces broke off of the vein wall and traveled into the brain. I thought some effect of either the Amazons, the Kunos or maybe Akane-chans cooking might have done something similar, but nothing showed up. Now that you've told me a little more of your life story I have another hypothesis."

"Go on."

"I think it's totally stress related. Hold on a second while I explain. First up I suspect you've been suppressing the urge to choke someone who desperately needs it for a couple of years now, there's also the fact that there are so many problems in your life right now that you could be forgiven for feeling the need to hurt someone. In fact it's very surprising you've managed to stay in control as well as you have."

"So you think its stress?"

"No, I used to think it was stress, I now believe that it's akin to something called 'combat fatigue', that's where people who are subjected to battle field conditions suffer mental break-downs and can't tell friend from foe, they also get to a point where they don't care about or for themselves anymore. Most go catatonic, but in rare cases the sufferer can go berserk, which means they don't live very long on a battlefield. You on the other hand are getting to the point where you could quite easily snap and really hurt someone, maybe even kill someone. I'd have said it was extremely unlikely to happen but I've seen changes in you, changes that I don't like."

"So what can I do Doc, I mean I gotta do something, and soon."

"You're correct Ranma it'll have to be soon. First thing you need to do is reduce the trouble with all your fiancées and rivals, failing that you've got to get away to as stress free a place as possible."

"Right! You know how likely that is. I've got some of the best trackers in the world around me, Xian Pu tracked me from China in a couple of days, Nabiki, she ain't no pushover either. Pops ain't too bad though I think I could get away from him, especially as he'll do most of his searching in sake bars. Then there's Ryoga he don't track me as much as home in on me, I don't know how he does it, he could find me in the middle of a forest in China given enough time. It's just himself he can't find."

"I know all this Ranma, and while as your doctor I can't advise a youth to run away. As your friend I'd say you need to go to another country, someplace far away. Maybe change your name, change as much about yourself as you can. Make it as hard as possible for them to track you, I'd even suggest warping your ki signature if you can."

"So that's what it comes down too? You know I ain't a coward Doc, I can't just run away and let them win!"

"Let them win? That's the only concern you have? If you haven't noticed Ranma your ki reserves are much deeper than they were even a few weeks ago, maybe as much as three or four times. If you lose it you could destroy a rather large part of Nerima trying to take out one of your rivals." Ranma blanched as he thought about some of his own discussions with Dr. Tofu over the development of the Shi Shi Hokoudan, and the likelihood that Ryoga could take out a large crowd of people without realizing what he'd done until the depression left him and then it would get worse. The thought that he was capable of doing something like that if he snapped was sobering.

"I wouldn't….."

"You might not even notice till you're watching the aftermath Ranma, that's the thing with berserkers they only find out how effective they are after they come back to themselves, if they do." He pinched the bridge of his nose as he thought about the possibilities. "I understand that money might be a problem for you so I'm going to give you some of mine…"

"I can't take that from you Doc!"

"You'll damn well take it and be happy, at least I won't charge you interest like some would." He smiled to attempt to take the sting out of his words.

"I suppose, but I don't like it. I think you might be right, I've gotta get away somehow and without the money I couldn't get away far enough or fast enough."

"Hmmm, are you open to suggestions?"

"Yeah, okay Doc you might as well tell me where to go, everyone else has." He smirked for a moment before the reality of the statement struck him and he winced.

"Never a truer word spoke in jest Ranma. I think you need to go to a totally new place, somewhere where no one would suspect you of going. I think you'd do well in the United States."

"America, you kidding, what would I do there?"

"You'd have the time to de-stress, maybe you could take your studies seriously for once, you could start a brand new life with no expectations and no fiancées. Think about it at least."

"Yeah I think I can do that Doc, I owe ya several."

"I'm in no hurry to collect Ranma, return the favour when you can."

"Right, see ya later Doc. Like I said it always helps talking to you."

To be continued……

Authors notes)- Hi everybody! I'm working hard on several fics at the moment and reading many more. While I was working I had a flash of inspiration and this is the result. alright I admit it ain't much but I wanted to write it anyway, so sue me. Rumiko Takahashi if you're reading this you don't need to take that last request seriously, I've found my spare Disclaimer once more and it's locked and loaded by the door you have been warned.

As always C&C, review, drop a line, let me know what you think, you get the idea.

Porthos112 22/2/07


	2. Chapter 2

One Straw

Chapter 2

Disclaimer)- This is a lawyer, and this be a law suit. Never the twain shall meet as I claim before all that I don't own anything.

He could almost taste freedom like a sweet healing draught that he desperately needed to drain to the dregs to heal the wounds deep inside. He just had another short wait while the officials processed his papers, and then he'd be ready to step into a whole new world.

Even the air smelled different here, a little processed with a subtle chemical tang but overlaid by the masses of people that traveled through here day in and day out. The man had never seen such a profusion of different races, so many different colours and religions, surely he'd find acceptance in this country.

He took a step as the line progressed and another person entered the terminal proper. The man sighed as his patience was stretched, so close, the people he'd left behind would never track him here, they were resourceful he knew, but here, he felt safe.

He suddenly became alert, something was happening, or about to, call it a sixth sense, call it what you like, but he knew it. Up ahead, someone's nerves were being stretched, the lady in red? No, not her, maybe the man in front of her, he, yes he's the one, but what's he planning? He watched as the man got more and more nervous as the line approached the customs officers at the head of the line, two people to go before he reached them, then only one. The man coiled prepared for action as the big blond man was directed to place his bag on the table to be examined, seems they already figured he was up to something. He narrowed his eyes as he watched the man begin to bend his knees, which ways he going, he's gotta know he can't escape. Jeez right back towards me, damn fool. As the sprinting man came even he swung his arm up and into the mans chest and watched in satisfaction as the mans feet left the ground. Almost faster than those watching could follow his other hand flashed out and grabbed the mans arm and twisted while the arm that had clothes-lined the man grabbed his belt and eased him to the ground almost like a feather, even though the burly blond outweighed him by a good forty kilos. Then everything seemed to speed back up to normal and all hell broke loose.

Armed guards drew their weapons as they prepared to give chase only to watch as a short Asian man almost casually slammed the guy so hard he spun around the point of impact then faster than they could believe their runner was down on the ground and fully restrained. To Curt Hansen it looked like the man ran into a girder, and the Asians arm didn't even budge, what the hell happened? Not one to question a good thing too much he joined the other customs officers as they rushed towards the suspected mule.

He looked up as he was surrounded by three men in dark uniforms with their weapons drawn and aimed he wasn't in any kind of mood to argue with them, he released the mans arm from where he'd had it in a submission hold and raised his hands slightly showing he wasn't going to try anything, not that he would have anyway. He cocked his head to the side as he tried to understand what was being said. Alright he understood 'Stop!' but the rest was meaningless.

"Someone get a translator in here," He ran through a few Asian country names and watched as the Asian mans eyes lit up at Japanese. "Get Kuzinori over here, the man's Japanese. No body else move!" This to the bystanders who to be honest were too busy staring at the scene to be frightened by the drawn guns. Most of them were excitedly thinking that what they'd seen on television must be true, after all they weren't even in the country yet and here was something straight out of one of those reality shows.

The man who still knelt over the big blond felt his danger sense go off the scale and couldn't figure out what it was, he'd missed something, or maybe someone? Not likely he scanned the crowd looking for something out of the ordinary but didn't have a clue as to where to start, everything was out of the ordinary to him. His eyes never stopped moving and the customs men were getting nervous, this man looked like he was about to make a run for it himself, after years of honed experience they could read him like a book, or so they thought.

His sense of danger was such that he knew he had to do something so he refined his senses to the absolute essentials, disregarding as much superfluous stimuli as possible his search suddenly narrowed to a cone that originated at him and spread out towards the front of the line, there were only four people in front of him and one customs officer, and everyone was watching him, then it caught his eye, that's it, and he moved. Dodging around the near stationary customs officer who reached out in slow motion he stretched out to the utmost speed he was capable, and then pushed beyond.

Curt had seen many things in his long service but he'd never seen someone move so fast they blurred, he couldn't even track the man with his gun, none of his officers could draw a clear shot either. There he went past the last few people in the line, his palm lashed out and Peter was flung back through the terminal doors shattering the glass to land sliding across the tiles. The Asian grabbed the handle on the suspects suitcase and swung it in a low arc releasing it at a speed none of those watching could believe, it hit the glass windows that ran along one side of the customs area and shattered the four metre pane of laminated glass causing the crystalline debris to spray out wards like a wave of diamonds in the bright sunlight.

Continuing out over the tarmac, Curt watched it's tumbling arc so entranced by the scene he almost missed the Asian man yelling. He was reaching for his radio to have a team recover the case when what the man said penetrated.

He had to get the message across but his limited English was hardly up to the task. Then he remembered some of the movies he'd seen.

"Geto dowune!" He slammed into people close to him knocking them off their feet, and then seeing so few actually reacting to his shout released a low powered wave of concussive ki to knock as many people off their feet as possible. He knew it wouldn't be enough but it was all he had time to do.

He'd used his ki to enhance his voice, the people furthest from him responded. Then there was a blinding flash out where the bag still tumbled towards the ground two stories below, the shockwave hit the windows and caved them in, shards of glass scythed through the air in all direction making an eerie whistling sound. He remained on his feet as he deflected incoming shards up towards the ceiling. The shockwave rolled across the customs area mowing people down if they were unlucky enough to still be standing, others were thrown away from the blast. Finally as the ball of flame that centred around where the case had been expanded out and washed over the side of the building but very little entered and even less actually ignited anything.

Silence descended a short time later, except for the occasional sound as something gave into the effects of gravity to teeter and crash to the tiled floor. He stood and watched as stunned people began to realize they were alive, or injured, many people hadn't escaped the falling glass. Then the screaming started in a wave that almost matched the explosion for sheer volume. Sirens and klaxon joined in to the din to make it even louder, and a stray electrical fire set off the sprinkler system. She wiped a rivulet of water from her face as emergency crews began to arrive on the scene. The water was cut off as they realized the fires had been dealt with...

Ranma blinked as the big blond man moved forward in the line closer to the customs officers, it was easy to see just how nervous the man was and Ranma could tell the customs officers hadn't missed it at all. He doubted he'd need to act, even if his mind kept giving him flashes of disaster and mayhem. Dr. Tofu had called it combat fatigue, and told him he wasn't the only person to have it, though it usually happened to people who came from a war zone. Ranma had just smiled, as far as he was concerned that described Nerima perfectly. It kind of explained the way he'd left Nerima as well, he didn't think he'd be welcomed back anytime soon, but that was alright because he had no intention of returning, ever.

At the head of the line the man had just erupted into motion as he pushed through the crowd on his way to who knew where. Where could the man go? He was on United States soil so to speak and they weren't likely to let him go anywhere. He thought about stopping the man as he had in his 'dream' but decided that a simple ankle tap as the man passed was more than sufficient, especially as he watched the man crash into the tiled floor and slide a few feet before the officials landed on the man. Ranma winced a little in sympathy, he'd had people land on him like that before and he knew how much it could hurt.

The customs officers spoke to the man for a moment or two and then cuffed him, Ranma thought it might have been his rights, just like in the movies but his English really wasn't up to it. He watched with interest as the man was led away and the suitcase the man had been carrying was taken away and then sighed as the line started moving again. Just a hiccup on the road to freedom or so it seemed.

He'd finally escaped the madness that was his life, he doubted even Ryoga could find him here, though he wouldn't put money on it. He needed time more than anything else, two years in Nerima had left him stressed to the point that he'd been having increasing numbers of hallucinations in which bad things happened, things he with all his prowess at martial arts hadn't been able to stop. People were hurt or dead, because he wasn't good enough. He shivered, even though the hallway was in full sunlight and the temperature was hovering around twenty six degrees, the shiver had nothing to do with the temperature.

The line moved again and he made to remove his pack, he'd be after the man in the Hawaiian shirt. He shuddered again as his mind dredged up his final run in with the principal of Furinkan High school. Then smiled, that was all three Kuno's accounted for in less than a day, and he hadn't even broken a sweat. His bag came off and he held it in front of him, one bag and about fifteen kilos of clothes, that was his life now, not that he'd had much more when he'd lived at the Tendo's, and all of that he'd given up as the price was too steep for him to want to pay it.

In a way he felt lucky, strange as it may seem, when he left he was carrying everything he owned. Not a single thing had he left behind, nothing that he deemed important anyway.

The custom officer waved the man in the loud shirt through the automatic doors and gestured for Ranma to place his bag on the table and to open it which Ranma did without hesitation, he had nothing to hide. More to the point he really didn't have that much at all, it only took the men a few moments to rifle through his bag and pass him through.

"Welcome to the United States Mr. Takagi, I hope you enjoy your stay." The customs officer smiled as he waved the Asian man through. Ranma noted in passing that the man he'd called Curt was actually Darren according to his name badge he hadn't been close enough to read it before.

"Thankyou very much!" Ranma enunciated the words very carefully and smiled broadly as he hefted his light pack and moved into the terminal proper.

If he'd thought the customs area was busy he was in for a shock as he walked into a roaring sea of humanity. Bright colours were everywhere he looked, adorning people from all over the world, he suddenly realized how sheltered he'd been, living in Tokyo. He smiled again as he contemplated the next year, he'd secured a twelve month working visa, not that he really had to, he could live very cheaply and he'd saved almost every yen he'd earned for the past six months both as a construction worker and as a waitress. He'd held down both fulltime jobs and done so well that he'd been able to afford both his airfare, paid for by Dr. Tofu, and enough to live semi comfortably while he saved the rest for once he got here. Not that he planned to be idle.

He'd decided to make his way to the nearest coffee shop for a cold drink when he looked up and found several serious looking men in dark suits blocking his path.

"Mr. Saotome? Could you come with us please? We have a few questions we'd like you to answer." Ranma glanced at the men and assessed them.

"What this about? Who you?" The pigtailed martial artist surveyed the clean cut men suspiciously.

"Of course, sorry about that. I just thought it might be best if we did all of that in private. The name's Simons, Andrew Simons and I'm with the FBI." He flipped open his wallet and showed his badge. "My superiors were a little worried that you were coming into the country under an assumed name and we're hoping you can put our minds at ease." Ranma frowned as he worked his way through the speech.

"Okay, I come with. You have translator, yes?"

"A translator has been provided, yes."

"I under arrest?" Ranma frowned as he considered what that could mean to his stay here in the U.S.

"Oh no! Certainly not, you haven't done anything to warrant that. We just have intelligence on you that shows you may be the cause of trouble here in our nation." They'd been leading Ranma surreptitiously over towards a doorway on the far side of the food-court. "Right through here." He then led Ranma through a warren of cubicles and into a glass partitioned office.

"Please take a seat. Can I get you some refreshments."

"Sorry, I no understand." He felt kind of uncomfortable in the small room with four other men. Then he looked towards the door as it opened to admit a small Asian man into the room.

"Sorry I'm late, I got held up. What with all the people leaving the terminal at the moment." He took the only other available seat at the table and looked around.

"Andrew Simons, pleasure to work with you."

"Kuzunori Ota, likewise I'm sure. You must be Ranma Saotome?" His switch between English and Japanese had been instant and for a moment Ranma felt envious at the ease with which the man spoke both languages.

"That's me, or at least it used to be." He watched as the man pulled out his glasses and perched them on his nose.

"Right, I'm sure they'll get to that. Now I'm the translator, I'll be asking you their questions so just answer me as if they were my questions okay? Don't worry about them, they're just window dressing as it were. Do you understand?"

"Sure. So what am I in here for?"

"Well first up the gentleman here would like to know if you want something to drink, maybe some food?"

"Ah, yeah I could stand to eat, and some water would be good." The man translated and a moment later the youngest of the foreign men left to procure the refreshments. Though Ranma thought to himself that he was actually the foreigner here.

"Good, now let's discuss some of the information we have on you. Could you tell us what you've been doing for the last six months please, we kind of lost track of you."

"Er, where to start, um, it goes back much further than that. Maybe two years, maybe a little more."

"Okay, we'll start with your arrival in Nerima shall we?"

"Alright, um, I came to Nerima a little over two years ago, my father had arranged a marriage for me to the daughter of an old friend. I was going to refuse but the old man made it a matter of honour." He looked up in time to see the other man wince in sympathy. 'Interesting'

"Okay, so you didn't want to be there?"

"Hardly, I mean I'd just picked up a curse in China and needed to find a cure as soon as possible."

"Curse? I read that in the file. What kind of curse do you have?" He translated the question he asked for the benefit of both parties and received a frown from both of them, one because he didn't believe in curses, the other because he didn't want to believe in curses.

"I turn into a girl." Ranma decided to be truthful with these people. One thing he'd learned from Nabiki was that he was a terrible liar, she could tell even before he opened his mouth. He didn't have a clue what these men knew or didn't so it would be safer all around if he just kept to the facts.

"Oh come off it! You expect us to believe that crap!" The man of Andrews right leapt up and slammed both his palms down on table as he glowered at the youth.

"Sit down Roger, your outburst is uncalled for. Though I don't think you're helping your case by telling us that." Andrew frowned himself, unhappy that things were going so bad already.

Ranma wasn't sure what they were mad about, he was the one who had a right to be mad about the curse. Then the translation caught up with his limited English and he blew his stack.

"Why the hell would I lie about something like that! Anyway I can prove it. Idiots." He muttered the last under his breath

"That I'd have to see, I couldn't just take your word for it."

"Yeah well, I don't like doing it if I don't have to. But I suppose I gotta. If you could get me some hot and cold water."

"You want some warm water?"

"No, hot and cold water in separate glasses."

"Oh, okay." Another of the men left the room. "So tell us a little more while we're waiting."

"Well what did ya want to know?"

"Everything really, just start at the beginning."

"Okay," Ranma started to describe his life in Nerima totally disregarding the snorts of disbelief that sounded from time to time.(1) After about ten minutes the refreshments arrived followed shortly after by the man who'd gone for the water.

Ranma was given a few moments to get a drink, he'd been talking for a while and he was already feeling a little dry.

"Okay, you've had your drink. Now show me this curse." The man tried to remain neutral but his suspicious nature came to the fore and he thought the young man was having them on. If he was he'd be on a plane about ten seconds later. Then he felt his jaw unhinge and the hair rise on the back of his neck as he witnessed said youth shrink, his hair colour changed as well, but the eyes stayed the same. Direct and crystal blue.

"You seen enough or would ya like me ta strip?"

"Um, er no that won't be necessary." Totally unaware and uncaring of the frowns he was just given by his colleagues.

"Good cause police or not I woulda pounded ya for suggesting it." Ranma dipped her hand in the hot water and immediately gained nearly eighty pounds and a foot in height.

"So it's true? What other curses are there?" He leant forward, if what he'd seen was true, and he had no reason to doubt his own eyes then some of the other things that were dismissed in those files might be true.

"I just told you all this, but hum, let's see, there's Pops, he turns into a Panda, Ryoga is a pig, both curse wise and his behaviour. Mu Tsu becomes a duck and his girlfriend turns into a c-c-a-cat. Then there's Pantyhose Taro." Ranma looked around as if expecting somekind of objection to the name. When none were forthcoming he sighed and continued. "He turns into a monster, the cursed pool he fell in was called 'Yeti riding a ox carrying eel and crane', no one's ever managed to explain that one to me."

"Could you describe this monster for me please?"

"Sure, um he's about twelve feet tall, he's got wings on his back, an eel for a tail, recently he figured out that curses kind of join together and the picked up some tentacles from another pool, I suppose he weighs in at two or three thousand pounds, an I can tell you it's all mucle."

"And that's all of you?"

"Well I suppose there are more victims of the curses but they're the only ones I know of."

"So how do the curses work, other than hot and cold water that is?" Everyone was leaning forwards to hear the response this time, where before there'd been skepticism now they couldn't wait to know all about it.

"Let's see, alright the curse changes the person or animal that falls into it with whatever last drowned there. Now it don't make you into no animal up here." He tapped the side of his head to emphasize what he meant. "That's one of the reasons that Pantyhose Taro is so dangerous, he's got the mind of a very good martial artist at his disposal and lots of power to back him up." He looked downcast for a moment, then looked up with a small smile on his lips. "Course, I can beat him by myself now, then again he ain't got any reason to follow me.

"Alright, after seeing the curse for myself I have to admit that I'm more inclined to believe some of the crazier things you just described to us. What happened after that, I think you got up to describing your failed wedding?"

"Ah yeah, the wedding. It was interesting let me tell ya, much more at the epicenter than on the outskirts. You'd have to know I was the epicenter no matter where I went." The bitterness dripped from his words as he continued to describe the list of betrayals, damages and various other things that culminated in him taking the blame for the whole fiasco.

"And where were you in all this?" The big man at the far end of the table leaned against it scowling.

"Kami is he usually that angry? If you must know I was trying to deal with as many of the fighters as possible, limiting the damage and getting spectators out of the way."

"You expect us to believe the 'Worlds self proclaimed best martial artist' couldn't handle a few fights?" The man was openly sneering now.

"That's uncalled for Jake, keep your mind in the game." His supervisor wasn't happy with his outburst at all.

Ranma on the other hand was coming to a slow boil, "You look like you can handle yourself in a fight, Jake was it?"

"Yeah I do all right," he smiled for a moment.

"I can see you do karate-do and a little kung-fu, southern preying mantis if I ain't mistaken?" Jake Remora blinked for a second as he took in what the kid had said.

"How the fuck do you know that?"

"I watched the way you move, and I'm very good at guessing. How many people can you take down in a fight, Jake-san?" Ranma leant his chair back against the wall and put his feet up on the table, with his hands resting behind his head he seemed totally at ease even to the trained fighters in the room.

"I can take groups up to fifteen," he continued to sneer, this Ranma hadn't been able to handle that many if what he'd said about the fight was true.

"Cool, gotta admit that's impressive, if we're talking about fifteen people who are nearly as skilled in martial arts as you are. Are we?" Kuzinori Ota translated the words and blanched as Agent Remora stood up so fast his chair crashed into the door behind him, then blinked as Ranma appeared crouched in the middle of the table with one of the officers guns pressed under the big mans chin. The room froze in a tableau of inaction as the shock set in.

"Got something to say Jake-san?" The translation came out stuttered but was clearly understood. The hammer of the gun clicked back, and it certainly didn't help anyone's nerves that he was glowing in shades of blue from head to toe.

Andrew Simons decided to step into the discussion for the first time since it had started before things got to far out of hand. "Now, now calm down son. We don't want anyone hurt here now do we?" He murmured softly so as not to startle the young martial artist.

"I'm alright Simons-san, I ain't gonna hurt anyone either, someone just needed to learn that they can't push my buttons like that." Remora sighed in relief as the click-click sound of the hammer being gently lowered again. Ranma placed the gun down on the table and turned to walk back down the centre of the black lacquered table, no sooner had he reached the centre of the table than he felt the officer of the law scrabble for the gun and bring it to bear on his back.

"You've gone too far this time Saotome, taking an officers gun is a Federal offence," he yelled as he depressed the trigger before anyone could stop him. Everyone around the table blinked as nothing happened, Ranma wasn't thrown into the far wall by the impact of a 9mm slug in the back, there was a definite failure from the sound effects department as a round failed to fire, and no spent cartridge was ejected from the semi-automatic pistol in his oversized fist. Jake Remora looked at the gun in his hands and slowly began to realize that his gun was lighter by a magazine and the round that should have been in the chamber. Ranma crouched down in front of his seat for a moment then stood revealing a small pyramid of ammunition sitting like a modern sculpture.

Ranma stepped off the table and regained his seat, tipping it back till it rested against the wall. He blinked….

Nothing had changed, the little sculpture made of bullets still sat directly in front of him, 'Ah shit! I actually did that. An' here I was hoping it was another hallucination.'

He looked round at the stunned people sitting around the table and wondered what their reactions would be to this.

To be continued…..

Next time in 'One Straw', find out what the repercussions are of disarming the FBI in their own offices? How exactly did Saotome escape the madness of Nerima? And how do they get the jelly in a jelly donut? Only two of these questions shall be answered but stay tuned anyway to find out which ones.

Ah yes the shit hits the fan, but which way doth it blow?

(1) I don't think I need to re-iterate the whole Ranma 1\2 story to those reading this fic. If you don't know what happened in the story I'd highly recommend reading it all. It's good, really, at least for the first two or three times then you start to notice little things like a lack of a real ending, or paper thin characters. But I digress.


	3. Chapter 3

One Straw

Chapter 3

Disclaimer)- Everyone knows what goes here right? Come on a show of hands anyone who's confused that the writer of this fanfic doesn't own the characters and isn't making any money out of them.

Authors notes, I was a little surprised that no one seemed to pick up on the fact that the interpreter in the hallucination from the last chapter was the same name as the real interpreter that Agent Simons used in interview room one. Just a thought but what can it mean, does it mean anything? Ah-hah and you thought I'd tell you when you can continue reading my fanfic and find out?

Oh yeah, and seriously, please review. Let me know what you think of this so far. You may notice that scene breaks are denoted by this / \ from now on in the centre of the page. Oh look there's one directly beneath this line now.

/ Let the story begin \

'Damn, that smarts,' he thought as he shifted on his seat trying to gain some level of comfort even as the vibrating sheet of hard plastic began to send his backside blessedly numb. Looking out of the window he could see a small town and a fair bit of farmland as the plane he was currently in banked to make a course change heading in a northerly direction. They hadn't told him where they were taking him at this point but the large military transport was only a medium range plane so it had to be somewhere on the mainland.

Across the aisle the small figure of Kuzinori Ota sat, he looked a little glum to be on such a primitive plane when there were more comfortable options available. The translator was there to make the transition to wherever they were taking him as smooth as possible, a known face would make things easier or so they said.

All in all Ranma preferred this, his second flight to the first. The noise was deafening and the plane shook at times with turbulence letting him know that they were indeed in powered flight. The airliner had been smooth and almost noiseless which he'd found to be un-nerving after a while. The incessant whine of noise suppressed jet engines was nearly as annoying as Hikaru Gosunkugi when he started whining about the injustice of his life when Akane wouldn't even acknowledge his existence.

Gradually over the next hour or so the terrain below changed, the farmland disappeared to be replaced with red rocky outcrops and large desert like plains with sparse vegetation. Though he could be mistaken about the sparse bit as they were currently at ten thousand feet and it was hard to truly judge. Ranma was just beginning to wonder where they were going when one of the marines on the plane came over and spoke to Kuzinori who then relayed the information that they'd be landing in half an hour. Satisfied that he had a rough idea of what was happening now he closed his eyes and began to go over some of his memories of his flight from Nerima.

/ flashback \

It'd been late afternoon when Ranma finally made it back to the Tendo Dojo, he'd never call that place home again, not after all the crap those old bastards had put him through. Then when he did walk through the door they'd pounced on him to begin anew. Luckily for them he'd had a good long talk with the good doctor and was feeling marginally in control, though it was a truly near thing and ended up slipping away real fast towards the end.

"Tendo, I swear I don't know what I ever did to deserve such a disrespectful child…"

"Ya want that in alphabetical or chronological order old man?" Ranma smacked the bald man straight in the mouth, too fast for the vastly experienced martial artist to even begin to counter. He went through the garden doors in a flat trajectory and barely missed the outer wall of the property.

"Don't talk to your father like that Ranma, you should respect your father," Nodoka's assertion fell on deaf ears, he'd lived with the consequences of his old mans lifestyle for too long to give him any kind of reaction other than the one he just had.

"As if! I respect him just fine mother, every bit as much as he deserves." He cast an eye at the wall to make sure his father was down for the count.

"That's a rich attitude from someone who destroyed my family's dojo." Soun Tendo butted into the conversation.

"I did what? I'd choose your next words with care old man." Ranma glared at the weeping man incredulously wondering what the hell he was talking about, in fact that would probably be his next question.

"You heard me just fine." Sulking really didn't suit a grown man if he could loosely apply the word man to Soun Tendo.

"Yeah you're right, I heard ya just fine. Ya know what if I'm gonna be blamed for it I might as well be the one that did it!"

"What are you talking about? You did quite enough damage yesterday boy!"

"Me? I'm the only reason there's anything left of the dojo you stupid fucker!" Finishing what he'd intended to say for the moment he stormed out into the yard and faced the jagged remains of the dojo. "Ya wanna take a last look at the so called dojo?" he yelled, "Then I suggest ya get your lazy arse out here." He clenched his fists as he began to gather as small an amount of ki as he could into a sphere as the rest of his extended 'family' came out into the garden at a run.

"Don't you dare!" Soun roared completely shocked out of his funk. Determined to stop Ranma he ran off the porch whilst forming his demon head attack, which he noted had little effect on the enraged Saotome youth.

"Mouko Takabisha!" Ranma released his ki attack and watched in satisfaction as the two remaining walls and the wooden floor to the old building disappeared in a torrent of red tinged power. When the light show from his attack died down and the smoke cleared there was a shocked silence as they saw how much damage he'd done with one of his low end attacks. The remains of the dojo had disappeared as had the section of compound wall behind it and a good portion of the street beyond, in fact there was a trench some fifteen metres long and a couple of feet deep that wasn't there before.

"Now you can blame me for the dojo! An' while we're at it, did ya want me ta take responsibility for all the holes in the roof from when Akane mallets me?" To make sure they understood exactly what he meant he formed two new spheres of ki and directed his attention upwards.

Soun must have realized they'd pushed the boy as far as they could and now he was starting to push back and was wondering how to keep a lid on this new development. Deciding things really couldn't get any worse he threw caution to the wind and opened his mouth to shout. "How could you! That was my girl's inheritance, now I've nothing to give them."

"Like you ever gave 'em anything in the first place. You're worse than pops, you know that don't you? At least the fat bastard was there for me, not that it did me much good except in the art."

"You're a guest in this house and as such you'll act with respect towards this family."

"Yeah, yeah, but I notice none of ya follow those rules do ya?"

"Whatever do you mean?" Soun made the mistake of meeting Ranma's eyes, he shivered as he contemplated how it was possible for fire and ice to reside in the same expression.

"You ever notice how it's, 'You're a guest' until you need me and then it's, 'Protect the honour of the dojo' when you need someone to take a challenge match. I just wanna know how I'm responsible for the honour of the dojo if I'm only a guest? I would have thought that being engaged to your daughter made me more than a guest. Or are you dissolving the engagement, cos if you are just let me know in advance will ya? Not too much advance mind you, I mean it's not like I've got much to pack."

"Oh no! You will marry my little Akane, it's a matter of honour!"

"Honour? You're a regular laugh riot ain't ya? You and pops wouldn't know honour if it came up and smacked ya in the face."

"Ranma! How dare you question your father's honour?" Nodoka began with a frown.

"I didn't question his honour, I know all about his so called honour and anyway it's not like anyone gives a damn when it's my honour in question. Ya all expect me to act the way you want so that your honour is protected, but not one of ya thinks about how it affects mine. You know what, with how flexible honour is around here you can just go and fuck honour."

"It's not manly to swear like that son," she reached into her obi and withdrew a piece of yellowed paper while she fingered the tie on her katana to remind him of the leverage she held over him, and then yelped as both items vanished from between her fingers.

"Ya know what? This piece of paper is more trouble than it's worth." He waved the paper in question as he thought what to do with it. "I reckon if I took this to a lawyer he'd tell me that it ain't legal or bindin'. Ya know why? That would be because I wasn't old enough to understand the contents of the contract I was so called 'signing'."

"That doesn't matter, your honour is tied up in that paper." If Ranma had ever looked into a mirror when he was fighting a halfway decent fighter then he would have recognized the expression on his mother's face, like she knew he had no answers to her words.

"Oh I think you'll find it does mother. Ya see I can't sign a legally binding document till I'm twenty and that means the only person who's honour is affected is you and pops for holding a child responsible for that crap. That's what all this is about if you think about it, I ain't able to sign legal documents because Pops and Tendo-san here would be our legal guardians, which means they could make us do pretty much anything they wanted."

"Come off it, anyone would think the world revolved around you." His mother didn't seem to know the two men very well even though she'd been coming here for months before she'd finally found out about her son.

"You know what? I reckon for most of the people I know it does."

"That's a little paranoid don't you think son." Soun paused in his crying to look askance at Ranma, in his friends absence he didn't really want this line of conversation to continue.

"Heh, it's only paranoia if they aren't out to get ya. Lets face it, both you and pops wanna retire and live off my back for the rest of your miserable lives. Mother here wants me to give her grandchildren, and she ain't particular about how she gets them. Then there's Happosai…"

"Don't say that name, you know he'll come." Both Soun and a mostly recovered Genma were making shushing motions to shut the boy up.

"Good," he waited for the protests to die down before continuing, "cause as soon as I see tha freak I'm gonna kill him for stealing my Jhusenkyou cure."

"That was a mistake, you heard him, he thought it was sake."

"Riiiigght, an' if ya believe that I've got a nice timeshare you can buy for the Tokyo tower. He just didn't want me to lose this curse, so he can try to grope me when he wants. You all think I'm stupid or something?" Ranma growled out the last question. After that the situation degenerated into general name calling which ended with his father being returned to a crater near the Koi pond, the Tendo's father unconscious on the roof and Ranma-chan stomping into the house after a brief rain squall fell out of a seemingly crystal blue sky.

Nodoka tried in vain to remove the blade of her katana from the practice post where Ranma-chan had thrown it in a fit of pique. A foot and a half of the fine steel blade protruded from the far side of the foot thick oak post. She was either going to have to apologise to her child or go and get some tools to help remove the prized possession. As it turned out pride won the contest and she left for a couple of hours, she'd try to get the sword in the morning.

Dinner that night had been a strained affair as everyone avoided talking about anything that might set Ranma off again. Akane was sulking when she arrived home, while Nabiki scowled at the little thief. Ranma on the other hand enjoyed the peace for a while. The food when it arrived had been good and he'd enjoyed it but there had been something missing and it had irked him that he couldn't put a finger on it. Soon after the meal was finished they'd all headed off to their respective beds for the first really early night they'd had in a long time. Only three people wished for something different on the following day.

/ end of flashback \

The pig-tailed youth glanced up, startled that anyone would be able to sneak up on him. He must have been really deep in his memories, then again they stirred powerful emotions in the youth.

"Ranma-san we'll be landing in a couple of minutes, maybe you should put your seat restraint on now?"

"Er, thanks Kuzinori-san." He fumbled with the belt restraints for a second before he heard it snap into place. It wasn't very long until he felt the plane start to descend. They'd informed him that they were going to drop him off in a dry lake bed slightly to the south-east of Edwards air force base which would be the nearest civilization being only ten kilometers away. The plane shuddered violently as it made contact with the dry lake bed and ran on for quite a few hundred metres before coming to a halt inside the massive dust cloud being kicked up by the engines and the landing.

The attachment of marines that was on the plane quickly went about grabbing the gear that had been set aside for him and marched off of the plane leaving two men to struggle with the forty-five gallon drum of drinking water, Ranma decided he'd help and walked over he gestured the annoyed looking marines away from the drum. Grabbing the nearest top edge he rammed his foot into the side of the blue polyethylene drum, the massive weight pivoted around the fulcrum of his grip and swung up into the air. As it swung past the point where his right handed grip was secure his left hand gripped the new bottom edge while his right eased it down to his shoulder making sure it sat securely he bent his knees to pick up his pack and sauntered down the rear ramp of the plane leaving the two stunned military men to pick up the barrels stand so that it could be set up in his base.

An hour later the squat looking transport roared into the sky leaving behind nothing but a slowly dissipating cloud of dust and an extremely angst ridden teenager.

All in all the commanders tent was perfect as far as Ranma was concerned, the high roof allowed him to walk around inside in an upright position and was spacious inside, enough that a table and chairs could be set up for meetings and the like, not that he'd be having visitors, it could be too dangerous at the moment but who knew what he'd feel like later. He finished positioning his personal items and sat down in one of the comfortable camp chairs he'd been provided with to contemplate the solitude.

It didn't take long for his attention to turn away from the seemingly near horizon, and to the reason that he'd been placed here. He winced in memory of the action that Jake Remora had initiated…..

/ flashback \

Ranma would be the first to admit that life never went as he planned, as he was heavily into improvisation that was easy to understand. Just how things had gone so wrong so quickly was beyond him though. One moment he thought he was in total control of his life and then it turned sour.

Since then he'd been showing symptoms of combat fatigue and Dr Tofu had decided he should know what that entailed, the most important one to remember was the hyper-arousal state, which wasn't as hentai as it sounded, basically boiled down it meant that his senses were being stretched to detect any and all threats to himself.

In a normal case that might mean that the victim would have extended hearing to say double normal range, eyesight would pick up any movement and the persons sense of smell would be working overtime, this could lead to irritability, insomnia and a slew of other symptoms as their brain tried to deal with the influx of incoming information it wasn't designed to handle. The thing is that in a normal human brain there are safety mechanisms that stop us from taking in too much information about the world surrounding us. It gets taken in but its importance is so small it's mostly ignored unless it triggers an automatic response.

Ranma Saotome was anything but normal, he actually had more senses to work with, the one that was the most concern however was his ki sense, with it he could sense anything up to a kilometer away if he strained and augmented his normal senses with ki. This would mean that he was trying to keep track of every living thing within a one kilometer radius and that could be a lot of people when you were talking about somewhere like Tokyo or Los Angeles. He could dismiss most of the information he sensed as unimportant however when you take into account the fact that he could also use ki to sense the intent of the people around him.

Take for example the room he was currently in, Agent Simons was angry towards him and Jake Remora on almost equal terms. The interpreter had almost soiled himself in fear as things progressed, and Ranma felt the need to apologise for that at some point later on. Jake Remora was a sullen pit of barely contained fury where Ranma was concerned and the killing intent beat against Ranma's psyche relentlessly no matter what his boss had told him. The other two agents in the room were a cross between scared and confused as things had developed almost too fast to comprehend. Out beyond the room were many normal people, and then there was a small group heading…his mental reverie was disrupted as Simons decided to get verbal.

/ \

Ranma looked past the small pile of brass and lead, interspersed with the black magazines of the agents' pistols at the shocked expressions on the faces of those selfsame officers of the law. He'd kind of been hoping that it was one of those hallucinations he'd been having infrequently over the past half year or so. That of course wasn't to be, nothing was ever that easy where he was concerned. The good things that he dreamed never were, and the bad things always seemed to be made of pure shit. Ranma figured there had to be some major karma involved there. Nothing could go this wrong without the intervention of the Kami.

The one whose ki told him he was the head of the group was trying to watch both ends of the table, something like a spectator at a tennis match watching the ball go back and forth. Other than that he looked ready to explode, and wasn't sure who he'd like to yell at more. Trying to take a little control Ranma sat up very carefully so that no one would notice as he tensed in readiness. The strain of trying to contain the urges running through his mind was beginning to tell and the vaunted Saotome patience was beginning to fray.

/ \

Agent Simons couldn't believe just how fucked up one interview could get, someone was in a great deal of trouble here and he'd probably be taking a rather large piece of the flak himself. Jake Remora on the other hand would be lucky if he didn't serve time over this, and if by some stroke of luck he escaped prison time his job options just got reduced to asking 'would you like fries with that?' Typically someone who worked at McDonalds would have a higher security clearance than his one time agent would. Twenty years as a senior field officer might buy the man a slight reprieve but he wasn't going to count on it.

He turned carefully to view the other end of the table, after all his years in the field he had a kind of sixth sense for trouble, many officers did. Their gut told them things, the hairs on the backs of their necks would rise, or as in his case he'd feel a chill in his spine. The only time he'd ever ignored that feeling he'd walked right into an ambush that 'intelligence' said couldn't be there. This time he didn't feel a chill; this couldn't be called a chill because half his body just turned to a block of ice just like the eyes of the young man he found himself looking into. How he missed it he didn't know, maybe because Ranma didn't seem to have classic symptoms before, but he did now. He could see sweat from here, his eyes were visibly dilated and darting from side to side in motions so rapid it almost seemed like they remained still. The fingers of his right hand were rhythmically clenching the table edge which really wasn't alarming not in the least, except for the small fact that the oak was splintering under the pressure. If he was any judge he reckoned he had a couple of minute's tops to calm this down or walking out of here today might not be an option.

"Remora! Get the hell out of here now! Report to personnel, by the time you reach headquarters there'll be an official reprimand on file. You can expect my recommendation that this be investigated, now move, and leave your gun and badge." He waited patiently as Remora complied slowly with his request the large mans eyes never left the ice blue orbs of the young man down the length of the table as he placed his badge down on the useless chunk of metal that his weapon had become.

A sense of bitterness threatened to overwhelm Remora's towering anger that was directed at that disgusting piece of filth as he contemplated twenty years of wasted effort. He'd been near to retirement age, maybe another three years and he'd be out with full pensions for the rest of his life, and at only forty seven he was young enough to enjoy it. Now it was all gone. Ranma watched the big blond leave the room, he didn't know what had set the man off but then he had vast experience of being blamed for stuff that had nothing to do with his own actions.

Turning back to the young man who'd remained seated so far Agent Simons sighed as a small amount of strain seemed to have left the boys shoulders, on the other hand his eyes were fixed on the wall now and he didn't seem to be paying any attention to the people in the room. He'd heard of hyper-arousal or hyper-awareness as it was more accurately called and wondered where Ranma's attention was fixed. That could probably wait for a few moments though…

"Mr. Saotome? I'd like to apologise for the actions of my agent. He went way beyond the orders he was given, this should just have been a quick interview to ascertain whether we could allow you to remain here in America…." He trailed off as Ranma blinked in his direction a few times before some warmth returned to his eyes.

To say Ranma was surprised would be an understatement. No one ever apologized to him like this, oh maybe if they were threatened they might admit it was a bit of a mistake, but apologise? No.

"Uh, that's okay Simons-san, it happens all the time to me. Er..You do know that there are six armed men on their way here don't you?"

Simon's blinked as the conversation segued in a totally different direction; of course he knew what that meant. Six men, armed, in the airport terminal could mean two things. Terrorists which was highly unlikely, or SWAT, and he knew which he'd put money on.

"Damn it who pressed the panic button?" Looking up and down the table it didn't take long for him to realise it was probably Remora. He looked down the table and tried to reassure the young man that it was nothing to worry about. "I'm sorry Ranma but that's SWAT out there. Please don't provoke them as I really don't want anyone to get hurt today."

Ranma didn't say anything as he continued to survey the situation, Jake Remora stopped one of the SWAT members as he was rushing by and spoke urgently, and while Ranma didn't know what was being said he could feel the change in the mans life-force as he became amused in a Kodachi kind of way.

"I'll try Simons-san but Remora just spoke to them and I don't think he said nice things." Simons looked at him in horror, talk about digging a hole and burying everyone.

"Ah shit!"

"Hey, I tol' ya I didn't wanna hurt no one, an' I'm gonna try, I just may not succeed." The team by this time had made it to the office and were quietly directing staff to evacuate in preparation to storm the dangerously insane man in IR1, there were agents in there who needed saving. Ranma watched as they efficiently secured the area and took up covering positions around the door. He gestured for the agents in the room to back up and stay on the floor as he didn't want anyone to be caught in the crossfire.

Watching carefully he figured that the man with the metal ram would strike the door then back away to one side or the other, and taking into account how he held it Ranma figured it would be to his left.

/ \

Agent Simons took Ranma's request at face value and indicated that his team should do the same, leaning his back against the side wall he watched in surprise as a small pinprick of blue light formed between Ranma's hands, it quickly swelled to the size of a baseball showing that it was formed of many strands of different shades of blue energy. Whatever it was it made the hair stand up all over his body. He opened his mouth to protest but Ranma had already released the ball towards the doorway just as said door crashed open.

/ \

Edward Coan slid into place with casual ease knowing that the rest of his team were where they needed to be to cover his exposed ass. He loved the job, what wasn't to like, there were guns, and explosions, and the women seemed to dig the uniform. And did he mention there were guns? When he'd joined the force twelve years ago he never knew he could get this far, but he'd excelled in his training at the academy and five years of good service on the beat and he'd qualified for a position in SWAT training, the washout rate was truly horrific if you were ambitious but he'd managed to scrape through and never once thought of looking back.

The alarm had gone off exactly two minutes ago, and team one had been in ready response, bolting out the door with weapons slung and full kit. They'd met an FBI agent halfway to interrogation room one and he'd explained the situation. Some young guy had gone insane and grabbed an unsecured weapon as he was entering the room and was now holding the people inside as hostages. He'd claimed the youth was highly irrational and wasn't responding to verbal cues or questions at all. This led them to formulate a plan for extraction instead of calling for a negotiator as was procedure. The FBI knew the risks so they would know what was about to go down, you had to trust the judgment of someone who was highly trained in such a situation otherwise you'd be forever second guessing the intelligence you received.

Coan positioned the heavy ram against the door and swung it back before ramming it just above the lock. The frame gave way and the door swung inwards exposing the room to the interlocking field of fire of the rest of his team, but he was already swinging to his right and came to rest with his back against the solid concrete just in time to hear a massive crump that sounded like a grenade or something. The wall behind him shattered outwards as the shockwave from the detonation blew a hole in it, coincidentally picking Coan off his feet and spinning him through the air and several office partitions to come to rest draped across a desk completely unconscious.

That's not what it looked like to the rest of his team however and they opened up on the guy in the red shirt at the far end of the room for killing their teammate. Yeager, O'Brien and Stearne advanced under covering fire towards the door expecting little resistance now that they'd seen the youth spin around after being hit, they didn't expect to see him blown into the air though, or to see his hand strike the edge of the table in the room.

/ \

He'd felt the change in the atmosphere before the man at the door even struck it, whoever he was his mind was focused on removing the threat in the room as quickly as possible and was showing signs that he'd use deadly force without a second thought, and maybe not even a first one. Ranma chose to release the ki attack he'd been holding in reserve as a threat against the SWAT team as he really didn't think they'd listen to him. The ball streaked the length of the table causing the varnish to melt and bubble as it flew straight where he wanted it to be, the wall lasted less than a second before it became so much shrapnel firing into the mans back in a spreading cone of destruction. Luckily the man was wearing a flak jacket that absorbed the impact, well most of it. He still went sailing through the air in an uncontrolled tumble. Ranma realized that the situation had officially hit the fan, the damage was done and now he'd have to reap what he'd sown.

Ranma felt the incoming rounds as a stream of kinetic energy, he wasn't stupid enough to believe he could be hit with something like that and walk away without damage, so his mind did what it did best in a bad situation, he improvised. The bullets struck the sub space pocket exactly as he planned taking care of any damage he might receive from them, only to be taken by surprise as the kinetic energy of the bullets transferred to the anchor point on his wrist causing it to be flung backwards and dislocating his shoulder with a sickening crunch that told him that was gonna hurt very shortly.

He was tough but not that tough. To lessen the damage he leapt into the air at almost the same instant the force of the bullets traveling at nearly two thousand feet per second transferred to his body causing him to spin like a top in the air. Focusing on his next move he reached out with his good hand in a reflexive swipe as he smashed it into the edge of the table picking up the four hundred kilo piece of furniture and throwing it the length of the room. Smashing into the already weakened section of wall, it gave way under the immense strain and slammed into the three unwary men as they came level with the doorway in preparation to storming in and finishing the probably mortally wounded youth quickly. They weren't prepared to be struck with a large table, to be honest few people are. Yeager was clipped with the corner of the table and was spun away with a number of broken ribs. O'Brien and Stearne weren't quite as lucky as the full weight of the table pinned them flat thus rendering their feeble attempts to remove the dead weight resting on them as futile.

/ \

Gaelyn Caruso, commanding officer looked on stunned as his orderly progress was obliterated in mere seconds, it didn't help that the smoke from the spent rounds had set the fire alarms and sprinklers off. Then there was the fact that the youth shimmered for a second just before disappearing. That was when he got the feeling this was going to be possibly the worst day of his life.

/ \

Ranma winced at his stupidity, of course it had seemed like a good idea at the time. It often did when he improvised. He now knew two things, one, never attach the sub space pocket to his body when trying to stop bullets and secondly that while he'd taken damage the basic idea was sound. Of course he was in the air spinning like one of those children's tops but that didn't matter to him as he almost casually struck the edge of the table to stop his momentum. This caused the table to be thrown across the room and also stopped him enough that he landed on his dislocated shoulder slamming it back into the socket. He turned slightly green with nausea as the pain washed over him a second time but at least he could move it now without suffering further damage, he hoped.

/ \

Agent Simons was yelling for a cease fire when Ranma sank into the Umi-Sen-ken technique and vanished from his sight. He wasn't sure what the hell had just happened, he'd been about to stand up and call for a cease fire when the action began and stopped almost as quickly as it started. After the table passed him by doing a credible impression of a freight train when it struck the wall, he'd decided that he could be heard just as well from his position flat on the floor. He wasn't a coward by any stretch of the imagination, jumping in front of bullets to save important people in the spur of the moment, not a problem. The Saotome youth on the other hand was as scary as anything he'd ever seen and he may not be a coward but he wasn't stupid either.

/ \

Ranma knew that he hadn't scored any major brownie points for taking out two thirds of the SWAT team. He had to finish this as quickly as he could or it would truly blow up in his face, and he wasn't stupid enough to think that this was as bad as it could get.

There were only two men left when he walked through the doorway as bold as brass, no one could see him veiled as he was in one of his fathers sealed techniques. The Umi-sen-ken only had one flaw as far as he could fathom and that was that as soon as he showed even the slightest intention of attacking the invisibility aspect of the move failed. He'd discovered a way around that though, and it came to him after he thought about combining the Umi-sen-ken with the 'Soul of ice', with the two he could convince himself that he wasn't attacking the man; he was just arranging his body, the fact that his fist moved through the space currently occupied by one of the SWAT members heads was merely a coincidence.

/ \

Gaelyn watched as his final team member span around his axis and slumped slowly to the ground as if someone was lowering him gently to the floor. He pointed his machine pistol at the air over his teammate and was about to shout a challenge when something that felt like a finger came to rest against his right temple. He tried desperately not to move, not to look and not to breathe, the madman had gotten more than the drop on him, sweat beaded on his face as he watched the young man fade out of thin air. The first words out of the youths mouth were a true surprise though as he heard.

"Hi, I'm Ranma Saotome. Sorry about this." The sheepish smile on his face as he waved a hand over the carnage that surrounded them infuriated the seasoned veteran and he was thinking of making a move even though he knew it would probably be the last thing he did when he heard a groan from behind him. The only team member that he knew was behind him was Coan which meant that he probably wasn't as dead as they'd thought he was.

Which meant…. He looked closely at his downed team and began to see signs of movement in some of them. Figuring with the way the pig-tailed youth scythed through his team he knew that they could have all been dead instead of incapacitated. His finger moved very slowly off of the trigger and clicked the safety on as he moved to place the weapon on the floor. If he'd been a little more focused he'd have known that Ranma had already put the safety on in his own special way.

/ \

Andrew Simons stood in what had once been the doorway to interrogation room one and surveyed the detritus of the fight between Ranma and SWAT team one. It was hard to believe that an unarmed youth could do anything against the highly trained tactical response team, the fact that he'd walked all over them was simply stunning. This was going to take a lot of explaining especially as he was inclined to help Ranma repair some of the damage to his mind, at least as much as he was able. One of the first things he'd noticed in the file was that he'd only ever talked about his problems to the local chiropractor, who while knowledgeable in a wide number of medical fields wasn't a specialist in any given subject other than alternative medicines. If they let Ranma stay in the country there would be conditions.

He could feel the headache coming on already as he thought about how he'd explain this up the chain of command.

/ \

"The Director is expecting you Agent Simons," the secretary wasn't at her desk as was normal but standing by the wooden doors to Director Bergheim's office.

"I'll just bet he is," Andrew Simons knew there was going to be flak about his actions in interrogation room one earlier that day, but this was beyond a normal reaction. The doors opened and the secretary stepped away to usher him inside. The office was large, being almost twenty metres square; the décor mainly consisted of dark finished timber paneling and furniture with brass fixtures and fittings. The wall behind the massive desk looked out over the city of Los Angeles in all its smoggy glory. The sun was above the horizon denoting that there were a few hours till full 'dark', not that the city ever actually got completely dark. The sunlight struck the far wall of the room illuminating the gold letters on the books in the recessed bookshelves.

Director Anthony Bergheim wasn't an imposing man in the physical sense; he was short at five feet six inches. His appearance seemed to be that of an average sixty year old man, except for the eyes, they were the eyes of a man who'd seen more than his fair share in a lifetime of law enforcement, and the white hair atop his head bore silent witness to that. What made the director imposing was his presence; he had a sense of gravity about him that made sure everyone who came into contact with him paid very close attention to anything he said as he'd never waste time with trivialities.

"You'd better have a good explanation as to why I have a level one security threat on a C-130 heading for Edwards Airforce base Agent Simons or your Agent Remora won't be the only one suspended pending an investigation."

"I believe I can explain sir," Simons paced to the centre of the room and waited for his superior's next question. One thing you learned over the years was to never offer information that wasn't necessary.

"I don't have all day Agent Simons, and let me explain how good this had better be. If I don't concur with your actions at the end of this briefing I'm going to sink you in a whole so deep and dark you'll think you're half way to China. Do you understand me?"

"Yes sir! I'll need the tapes from the interrogation room, all eight cameras sir. Also I need the files on Ranma Saotome and the other members of the Nerima Wrecking Crew. At the same time pull up files on Genma Saotome."

"And this is all pertinent to the current situation?"

"I believe it is sir, but I'll let you draw your own conclusions. As you know I've served as a profiler before sir. Three years, I wasn't the best, but I did sufficiently well to gain promotion to my current position."

"I have your personnel records Simons, tell me why it matters, or I assure you it won't."

"On meeting Ranma Saotome for the first time I drew a gut level reaction to him, sir."

"I don't want to hear any 'The hairs on me nekio told me,' tales Agent Simons. I want cold hard facts, and I want them ten minutes ago! I don't want to have to tell the President that one of my men let a potential threat into America on a gut feeling!"

"I assure you Director that I have substantially more to go on than that. On first blush it's a peculiar tale, disturbing in its way, but I'm going to need you to suspend your disbelief for the next few hours sir."

"You can't speed things up? I have to be home in time for my grand-daughters recital tonight or my wife is going to do unpleasant things to me. You have one hour to make me a believer, or at least enough of one that I don't bust you or arrest you for treason do I make myself clear?"

"Fair enough sir. It started two years and seven months ago, roughly."

"Roughly?"

"The early stuff is all anecdotal evidence sir, it was several months after Ranma's arrival back in his homeland that he piqued the interest of local CIA assets attached to the embassy. At first he was taken for a martial artist of high caliber. This is unusual because he was sixteen at the time."

"Why is that unusual Agent? My nephew has a rather impressive swag of competition medals on the mantle at home."

"Sir I don't think you understand, Ranma Saotome at that time was probably the sixth ranked martial artist in the world. His skill isn't measured in black belts because he wouldn't be able to move with that many wrapped around his waist."

"I think you've made your point. So why did this Saotome boy suddenly come to the interest to the CIA?"

"At about the three month period the first explosion in Nerima was reported. Before you ask there were no explosives or chemical residue at the explosion site, none of them had the ability to create a bomb. The initial finding proved inconclusive, but it was enough to leave a presence to watch for further information. The surveillance crew began to feed live video from several of their suspects almost immediately, and the results were shocking to say the least."

"Spit it out already."

"Have you ever seen a Chinese martial arts movie sir? A chop-socky production?"

"Of course I have, I don't think I ever laughed as much as some of the action sequences."

"Yes sir, I understand. The video footage you're about to see is taken by CIA agents, while they are creative with the truth sometimes, I can guarantee that they weren't capable of creating this." Agent Simons walked over to the table at the side of the room and pressed a button. "You've got to understand that these are some of the early fights sir, later on they get more unbelievable."

Up on the big screen several of the Nerima Wrecking Crew were facing off, the next moment they seemed to blur together, four seconds later a young man in traditional robes staggered out of the fight to collapse with his bokken still firmly grasped in his hand. Followed thirty seconds later by another boy wearing a bandana around his neck. The action itself was so fast that it was barely possible to register half of the blows that were made. When the dust settled the scene of the fight was a complete wreck, walls were broken, windows smashed and there were holes in rooves all over the area.

"We have tens of thousands of hours of tape of fights just like this one sir, or more violent. Depending on who was involved. My personal favourite is this man," he pressed a button to bring up an already earmarked file. Mu Tse stood facing off against Ranma near a junkyard. "The man in the white robe is a Chinese national from a remote region, his name is Mu Tse and he practices an art called 'Hidden weapons' which I'm assured is different from concealed weapons. This boy could walk through air port security carrying any kind of weapon and no one would know, even after going through a metal detector."

"So he uses some kind of synthetic material for his weapon?" It seemed a logical assumption to make.

"No, we have samples of weapons that were left behind after his fights; they are good but not especially high quality steel. Watch this," he pressed a button and motion resumed. After thirty seconds and a couple hundred kilos of steel hardware the Director of the FBI sat back down to regain his composure.

"That's not natural, how the hell?"

"Don't bother asking me, I've watched it a few times and don't even have clue one how he carries that kind of weight let alone moves like that."

"This is relevant in what way?"

"Just letting you know what we're dealing with. Normal rules don't necessarily apply to these people. Like I said you need to suspend your disbelief."

"I'm willing to listen."

"About a month before they returned to Nerima the Saotome's visited an ancient training ground in China called Jusenkyou, there're a number of spring fed pools that are each cursed. We don't know specifics but prior to seven months ago a number of people received curses that turned them into various different things."

"Why seven months ago?"

"I'll get to that later sir. I thought we'd take this in chronological order. Ranma fell into a pool that cursed him to become a girl."

"You have proof of this?"

"Yes sir, it was one of the first things we asked. Ranma confirmed it with a demonstration with no prompting. Full video proof of the existence of magic from no less than eight video feeds, plus testimony from four FBI agents and the translator."

"Yes about that, what happened with Agent Remora?"

"We still don't know, but up till the demonstration of magic he was acting normally as far as I could tell. There may be strong religious connotations to his actions; he may believe Ranma is a witch which is anathema to some deeply religious people. That is only an opinion at this stage; he showed no prior evidence of being inclined that way."

"I'll take that under advisement Agent Simons. Now what else do you have for me?"

"Once Ranma popped up on the CIA's radar they began full background checks, whilst keeping surveillance on him and several of his so called friends. Over the time Ranma was in Nerima the operatives on surveillance noted abusive and derogatory behaviour perpetrated against Ranma by almost everyone around him. Now this in and of itself wouldn't be news if you didn't also cross it with the information that he's a highly trained martial artist who prides himself on being in total control of his body and mind. It's a pity that outside of those things he had little control. Thanks to the actions of his father he has many fiancées who have legitimate claims on his honour, and none of them were willing to give up their claim or share as his mother seems to expect ."

"You're telling me he has women throwing themselves at him and he's got a problem?" Bergheim who'd been married for forty two years seriously wished he had that problem at that age.

"It's the manner of the throwing sir, he doesn't particularly care for any of them and I believe that most of them see him as some form of trophy to show who's the better fiancée. From what I can see Ranma's an attractive young person, physically fit, probably the best martial artist on the planet, and that's in either gender by the way sir. If I had to make a guess at his earning potential, he could model, act, become a world renowned athlete, you name it and rich wouldn't even begin to cover it either. Plus he has an eidetic memory when it comes to things that interest him."

"You can prove that?"

"No, but on circumstantial evidence, he picks up other peoples techniques after seeing them once or twice. That doesn't happen unless there's something working for him. It could be that he's a savant when it comes to the martial arts, but I doubt it."

"So you're saying what?"

"He was a young person used to being in control, under insane amounts of stress, who has had that very sense of control over his life removed forcibly by those around him. Taking into account the history we've uncovered about the ten year training trip and a certain seppuku contract his mother had his father and Ranma sign the stress he's under must be enormous. By the way Ranma was five years old at the time he signed the contract with finger paint, so I doubt such a contract would hold up in court, even if seppuku weren't illegal now. If you asked me to profile Ranma's mental state right at this point in time I'd have to say he's suffering from borderline combat fatigue."

"Are you serious? Then why let him into the country?"

"Because with all due respect sir, he wasn't going back to Japan until he was ready. I doubt we could have stopped him from leaving and going where ever he wanted either."

"You had four SWAT teams on standby and you couldn't stop him." The mere thought that an unarmed young boy could be a threat to men holding automatic weapons was ridiculous to a man who'd been in charge of the Bureau for eight years.

"I suggest you watch the tape of the interview from after the demonstration of the curse. Jake Remora started to act strange at that point; this is where it gets interesting." He un-paused the tape and they both watched as the drama unfolded. "Now don't blink because you'll miss this." Director Bergheim squinted as Ranma leant back in the chair. "They're baiting each other at this stage and Ranma's winning. In fact he won the whole confrontation. Oh did you miss it sir? I'll just wind it back and play it on slow motion. The cameras are capable of thirty-two frames per second, even on frame by frame Ranma appears to be a blur, he struck the ceiling at the halfway point, we can't prove this but he hit feet first and re-inverted himself before landing. He didn't make a sound even at that speed. That was surprising because of that speed you'd expect a thud when someone weighing more than eighty or ninety kilos hits a solid surface."

"My God, how is that humanly possible?"

"That puzzles you Director Bergheim? I find it more puzzling as to how he took all the ammunition out of our weapons without approaching us," he watched as his superiors face went blank as he contemplated what he'd just been told, "Now watch this, walking back down the table he takes the time to do this. The magazines are all oriented so that the rounds point outwards from a central point. Twelve clips in all and ninety rounds of loose .38 ammunition. The loose rounds form a cone six rounds high starting with a base of forty eight shells up to its tip which only has one. He didn't create any kind of vibration when he somersaulted back into his chair and rested his feet back on the table.

"It was at the point of him getting back to his chair that I noticed his eyes began to shift uneasily, erratically but they kept tracking a point on the wall that was moving towards us, I verified this with computer simulation. Like many things about him his case of hyper awareness is extreme. It seems he tracked SWAT team one from the time they received the silent alarm from Remora and turned their intentions towards him. On average hyper awareness cases tend to pick targets within fifty metres, Ranma picked up SWAT 1 at just over eight hundred metres. It took the team a minute and a half to reach interview romm one, two minutes to clear the offices beyond and twelve seconds to be rendered unconscious by Ranma and he was being gentle, if he'd decided to cut loose and actually use lethal force then they wouldn't have even got that far."

"Eight hundred metres? If he took it into his head to lose it there wouldn't be anything safe." His mind heard the rest of the statement but stuck on the range of Ranma's hyper sensitivity.

"That distance is a conservative estimate sir. As far as I can tell he can sense people through walls, floors and ceilings. Also it's believed that metal doesn't hinder his senses in any way. As you know sir most cases of combat fatigue become lethargic and withdrawn, only one case in roughly two hundred enter a berserk state. Given Ranma's upbringing I believe he would be one of the berserkers, he would kill without compunction anyone who moved, anyone he deemed a threat of any kind, anyone making excessive noise or running. In LAX alone I believe the death toll could be measured in the tens of thousands."

"Even for someone of his skill surely that's a little farfetched." Director Bergheim crossed his arms over his chest and let his eyes bore through his subordinate.

"I don't believe so sir, the footage you're about to see denote instances at roughly eighteen months ago, ten months ago and seven months ago. The first is Mt. Horaisen; geologists decided that the mountain subsiding into the valley was the result of unstable matrix in the sandstone crossed with an earthquake that measured 6.8 on the Richter scale. Ranma disappeared from Nerima and was seen in the vicinity of Mt. Horaisen shortly before the event, he claims that someone named Prince Herb of the Musk and himself were responsible." On the two meter plasma screen a satellite image showed a brief flash of light followed by the small mountain disintegrating.

"….Do we have any other proof?" He sputtered in shock.

"No, there's nothing substantial, but taken in context with later events you may take his claim more seriously. The second event was the island of Togenkyo, a floating island covered in an eternal fog bank, the first evidence we had that this mythical island truly existed was from a spy satellite in nineteen seventy three, the fog bank is absent directly over the island and as such is visible only from space. After Ranma visited that island there was an explosion that was visible in space, the fog bank was dissipated and the island became visible from the sea. The mist is back in place now but this is a verifiable event, and it wasn't reported in any news articles anywhere in the world so he can't be claiming responsibility for something on the news."

The images shifted until they centred on what looked like a tropical storm with a small island in its eye, again there was a brief flash, but this time the results were more spectacular as a shockwave travelled outwards from the explosion dissipating the fog bank in mere moments. Nothing natural could have been responsible for moving that much air around.

"The third was actively covered up by anyone who had intelligence on it, as they concluded the same thing as the CIA's initial assessment that an unknown terrorist group had gained access to some form of nuclear device, even though the Chinese government categorically denied it. To avert panic the information was suppressed ruthlessly. That's the third event that Ranma claims responsibility for, and again there is evidence that a teenage boy of Japanese extraction was near the site of the explosion that tore the top off Jhusendo in the Qinghai province."

"I see, that's a rather sobering account. Each event seems to have been more destructive than the one preceding it."

"Not only more destructive Director but they're exponentially more destructive."

"Explain." He didn't put any specific emphasis on the word but the demand was there all the same.

"Sir each of the events was large in scale, firstly Horaisen which was mostly shale and sandstone both of which are notoriously fragile rocks, it crumbled under the heavy damage inflicted by both Prince Herb and Ranma, though Ranma's attack seems to have been the catalyst that destroyed the mountain. In the second instance the actual damage was light, I believe that Ranma directed the force so that it wouldn't do damage to the island, the force of that attack had to go somewhere and it ended up pushing a wall of compressed air outwards from the point of the explosion. The scientists assure me that it takes much more energy to move that kind of area of still air than to knock down an unstable geological formation."

"So that would mean that Jhusendo was easier to destroy than the second instance wouldn't it?"

"No I'm afraid not, Mt. Horaisen was mainly sandstone which is fragile in terms of stone. Mt. Jhusendo on the other hand was predominantly granite which is not fragile in any way, shape or form; it's a dense stone and extremely hard. Scientists extrapolated that it would take nearly three times the energy that was required to damage Togenkyo, and don't forget he was fighting a creature that was purported to be a demigod at the time. Other than that there's little known about the incident in China as it was very remote and there were few reliable witnesses. Mt. Jhusendo was the source of the water that formed the cursed pools of Jusenkyou, when it was destroyed the waters were released in a massive flood that caused all the pools to mix their respective magic's. What's left is a chaotic miasma of magic that is entirely unpredictable in effect, it also seems to have a rudimentary consciousness that ensnares the unwary traveller and brings them in to be cursed."

"Alright, so we've ascertained that he's extremely dangerous and possibly the most destructive force on the planet. Maybe you'd care to explain why you felt it was wise to let him stay near something as breakable as Edwards Airforce base?"

"Sir, I don't see as we had any other choice. While it's true we don't want him to destroy the base, I don't believe that to be a credible problem. As long as no one threatens him while he gets control of his life again. The only other option available to him at the time was the Gobi desert, which he informs me is too close to certain enemies he'd rather not tangle with while he's like he is. The repercussions could be disastrous for all concerned."

"So he's going to sit in the middle of a desert and regain some measure of control in his life?"

"Not quite sir, you see I convinced him he'd need help from a professional source to fix the problems he's facing. I convinced him to see a psychiatrist whom we would provide. I suggest we get the best in the field, or as close as possible."

"Hmmmm…. At least that makes sense, alright I believe you've at least tried to make the best of a bad situation. Leave the selection of the Psychiatrist to me, I've got more resources than you do. You're dismissed, I'd get some rest you look like you've had a really bad day." The old man almost smiled as he looked at his agents haggard appearance.

"Thank you sir," he would have saluted the old man facetiously if he had the energy but with the relief of reprieve he felt the last of his energy reserves falter as he headed for the door. Time enough to think on things tomorrow, maybe get some better answers, he hoped he hadn't seen the last of Ranma Saotome as the young man was an intriguing dichotomy of personalities. Amazingly skilled on one side and yet he was totally naïve at the same time. How that worked in the same body he had no idea but it would be fascinating to find out.

/ The end for now \

/ To be continued… \

Authors note, this seems like as good a place as any to take a break. For those of you who are curious as to why this took so long to be released I plead the hard drive ate my homework. No really, a nine month old hard drive died a noisy and sudden death. I lost all my backed up work, plus everything I had in skeleton form, idea files and research. All in all the work in progress I lost was more than a hundred thousand words across all of my multi-chapter stories. There was hundreds of hour's worth of ideas in there as well and it all disappeared in a few minutes as I listened to the hardware grind itself to death.

I was informed that I could get the information recovered if I wanted but it would cost anywhere from six hundred to two thousand Australian dollars to do, I don't want the information that badly. I mean I'm just a simple shop assistant, I don't have that kind of money just floating around for things I don't really need as much as I need say air.

Trust me on this nothing spells doom for motivation like having something like this happen, I mean I'm a grown man and I was hard pressed not to howl at the moon. I'm a lot better now so you should be seeing more out of me.


	4. Chapter 4

One straw

Chapter 4

Disclaimer:- Ranma-chan, Ranma, Kasumi, Nodoka, Tofu, Akane, Nabiki, Genma, Soun. These are all names of characters I don't own, Mina-chan on the other hand is mine. The scenes in this are also mine as I don't think Rumiko Takahashi would write something like the last scene.

Authors note:- READ THIS, IMPORTANT MESSAGE. For those readers who are under the age of eighteen or what ever is considered age of consent in your country please exit this fanfiction now. Those of my readers who are offended by sexual content should leave, though I will say it's a rather raunchy lime section, much toned down from the original. If I make the original available trust me when I say it makes this one seem very tame. I'll let interested people know on my profile page where I make it available if I choose to do so..

/ Seven months ago, Juuban \

/ Kasumi \

He'd been her doctor, she'd known it in her heart for so many years. She hadn't been the only one who knew it either as all the locals made a point of telling her about his antics when she wasn't around him to see the effects the mere mention of her name had on him. In the beginning it had been kind of amusing and flattering that such a serious and professionally minded man could be that way with just the mention of her name, a glimpse of her could send him into paroxysm of rapture, and the older members of the ward would watch with gentle amusement as the good doctor danced through the streets of Nerima, from a safe distance of course. As the years went on though things didn't change between the two as she thought they should, as she turned twenty he should have made the move that told her that she was truly special to him, and make some attempt to overcome his unusual reaction to her. He'd come to her alright but he'd made sure he couldn't see her, smell her or even hear her voice as he'd asked in the note that she listen to him only.

He'd explained that the depth of his feelings hadn't changed since he'd first laid eyes on her when she was fifteen and forbidden to him. Of how he felt when he was told that she felt something for him in return. Then he'd gone on to say how his lack of control was causing him to be a danger to all those around him, and that he needed to go away and find his centre again before this craziness became all that he was ever capable of. Dr Tofu hadn't touched her in all the time they'd known each other for fear of what he might do, but that one time he'd reached out a tentative hand and caressed her cheek. He'd called her his 'special one' to her face and even though he'd told her he'd be gone for a time she'd floated home on a sea of emotions that she couldn't define. Joy sounded much too tame a word for what she felt at that moment.

As the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months the joy she felt had faded a little but that was to be expected. A simple thought of him would renew the feeling inside of her though and nothing could touch her even though the world around her seemed to turn crazy with the arrival of Ranma and his father. The weirdness factor had escalated over the months but it seemed to happen to someone else, Kasumi could face any of these strange things for she had the knowledge that she held 'his' heart in her hand and visa versa.

Then came the fateful day that Akane had been kidnapped and taken to China by Kiima, the whole household had seemed empty for weeks as everyone went after her youngest sister to save her and while they were gone she realized that her world had moved on without her. A whole year had passed her by without seeming to touch her in any way she'd been so insulated by her love. From Dr Tofu there had been no word, not even a quickly jotted note. No news reached her from the local market either as he hadn't kept in touch with any of his previous patients.

Then things changed, and as is often the case it started with a letter arriving in the mail. She remembered that morning vividly as it was a catalyst for change in her life. Like many such mornings she'd left the house for the short walk that led to the mail box and pulled out a sheath of letters and junk mail, as she usually did to save time in her busy schedule she started to sort it on the way back to the house.

"Junk, bill, bill, junk, junk, junk, Nabiki, and Nabs, junk, Nabs, Nabs, junk, bill, oh, I've got mail." She looked at the rest of the small pile and thought for a second, 'Nope don't have to rush with that, there's no one home but me.' She picked up the letter and opened it. As she suspected it was from her long-time friend Mina, the usual greetings and salutations followed by a quick rundown of all that had happened in her friends life over the last few weeks since their last exchange, a quick mention of how lucky she was to know who she was destined for, it had been common knowledge between the two since school how Kasumi felt for Dr Tofu, then she'd gone on to state that her love life hadn't been so great. Kasumi shook her head as she read the words, 'Not again! You'd think she'd learn by now, pretty doesn't mean good.' Oh well she'd pen her commiserations back and support her friend through another break up and maybe try to beat some sense into her friends head about pretty boys, she smiled at the thought for a moment, her beat sense into someone.

She chuckled for a moment before continuing to read the letter. The rest of the letter turned out to be general news about several people they both new. Tacked on at the very end of the letter was an invitation to a warehouse sale being held by her Grand-father for family and invited guests only. She smiled as Mina's Grand-father was richer than Croesus and liked to share with his family every now and then. This called for a phone conference, she giggled at the Nabiki like thought for a second before dashing for the phone and dialling the number.

"Hi Mina…"

"Kasumi!" Mina squealed excitedly. "Long time no hear!"

'Well she doesn't seem too broken up about what's his name.' Kasumi thought. "How are you?"

"Me? I'm fine. I'm so over that dirt bag. Aaarghh, why do I have such bad luck with men?"

"Um, pretty boys?"

"Yeah, I suppose. But they're just so pretty."

"And they know it."

"Alright already, enough about Kinomoto. What's this really about?"

"I just wanted to call and see how you were after what's his name broke your heart." Kasumi shared a giggle with her friend.

"You are so full of it Kasumi! You never even rang after Jiro left with that bimbo, so what's the real reason?"

"Ok you got me. What's the deal with this invitation thing?"

"That? Grampa's having one of his family get togethers at one of his warehouses. He's offering a ninety percent discount to everyone who comes, invitation only of course. Think about it, a years supply of your favourite tea, yeah and I am talking about the one you drink only occasionally because it's so expensive."

"You're kidding right?"

"Nope, it's gourmet all the way. Everything in the warehouse is like that, and trust me it's gonna be big. So you're coming right?"

"I'd love to, only…" she hesitated torn between two desires, on one hand she really wanted to go, on the other she had to be home to receive phonecalls letting her know what was happening with her family.

"Uh-uh there's no 'only' about this one girl, you are coming aren't you." It wasn't a question anymore, it was said as more of a demand.

"I want to, I really do. It's just my sister's in trouble and the family's gone to rescue her. I kind of need to stay here in case they contact me."

"Right, that's just too easy. I'm coming over and we're going shopping." Kasumi would have questioned her friend further or protested but the click from the handset she held to her ear told her she'd be wasting her breath. That was one of the things she'd always liked about Mina, she had a streak of impulsiveness a mile wide and wasn't afraid to jump in with both feet, of course on occasion she'd sunk over her head as the water had been too deep, but you had to admire that kind of enthusiasm. She replaced the handset before heading into the kitchen to clean up and make a snack for Mina's arrival. If she knew her friend she'd arrive in about half an hour. In fact it was more like twenty minutes, Kasumi wondered if her friend had grown wings and flown, with the way things had been over the last few months she wouldn't be too surprised.

Mina didn't bother with knocking at the gate she just pushed the latch and came round to the kitchen entrance, she had a standing invitation with Kasumi and the rest of the family treated her as if she were a member of it just like Kasumi did.

"Hey Kasumi-chan how are you?" The usual round of hugs and great beaming smiles were exchanged. "So who got your sister this time? It was some Prince or something last time wasn't it?"

"Hmm, oh no that was the time before, and so far I haven't heard from the family so I don't know who kidnapped her this time. I'm sure they'll fill me in when they get back."

"That's just tacky, you'd think they'd at least let you know they're still alive or something."

"I'm not worried about that." Kasumi smiled at her friend.

"Huh? Why not?"

"Well it 'is' Ranma; I mean he always comes through in the end. So there's nothing to worry about." Kasumi shrugged as if she'd explained the meaning of the universe and wasn't it all just too simple.

"I'm going to have to meet this mysterious Ranma one of these days. He sounds intriguing."

"No, not going to happen. Not unless you want to fight an Amazon warrior, an Okonomiyaki chef and my little sister. Not to mention Kodachi Kuno."

"Kodachi Kuno?"

"I said not to mention Kodachi Kuno." Kasumi snickered at her friend before going back to the original point. "Ranma has quite a number of fiancées; self appointed wives and significant others, and most of them are extremely high powered martial artists."

"Okay, scratch that idea. I'd still like to meet him though even if it is only to put a face to the name."

"I'll see if I can arrange a neutral meeting place so that you won't be accosted while talking to him."

"You're serious?"

"Oh my yes, for Ranma to talk to an attractive female without being attacked requires at least forty-eight hours prior notice and I think it's seven separate phone calls to interested parties to reassure them the woman's no threat to them."

"Kami and I thought you and Tofu were messed up." Mina sat down at the table and picked up her cup of tea, the sandwiches could wait.

"We aren't messed up, he's just not here right now."

"How long are you going to wait for him Kasumi? I know you love him but it's got to have its limits surely?"

"He's worth it Mina, I've waited five years and I can wait longer." Kasumi smiled her private smile when she trotted out her favourite fantasy about her life with her new husband. "Anyway you mentioned something about a shopping trip before coming over."

"Yep! We're going to get you a mobile phone."

"A mobile? I don't need one of those, the only person who calls me is you."

"You know something? That's really sad Kasumi, you're a really nice person and you should have loads of friends."

"I've got enough now, and sometime Tofu will come back for me."

"Alright if you say so. Now lets go." Several hours passed and they'd finally found the perfect mobile for Kasumi and arranged for the redirect on the home phone so that she could come to the warehouse sale. "So now that we've got that sorted you're coming aren't you?"

"I wouldn't miss it. Do you really have to go? You could come back to the dojo for awhile." As they exited the shop, she wouldn't admit it to anyone else but the last couple of weeks had been too quiet and lonely in her estimation.

"Yeah, I'm sorry but I've got to work tonight and tomorrow, you could come over the day after and we could head to the sale from my place?"

"Sounds like a good idea, so I'll see you on Friday." She waved as her friend walked down the street towards the train station before turning and heading back to the empty Tendo dojo.

The sale on Friday was everything she'd hoped it would be, she'd raided Nabiki's hidden money stash under the third floorboard under her bed and pulled out nearly two hundred thousand yen, if she was going to get such good prices then she'd be prepared to spend an absolute fortune. Armed to the hip pocket so to speak she'd headed for her friends place, where she'd had to listen to stories of the new love of Mina's life. Kentaro was a publisher who specialized in manga, he wasn't rich, or at least not in the way some of them were, but he was well off, he'd even be joining them at the sale. Kasumi had been pleasantly surprised when she saw a photo of him to see that he wasn't classically beautiful in the manly sense of the word. He was a rather average looking fellow with a serious mien. When she met him later she realized that he wasn't always that serious, in fact he had a very light manner and she could see immediately why Mina had fallen for him, he didn't flirt with anyone other than Mina the entire day they were together.

Shortly after arriving they'd split up, Mina and Kentaro going one way while Kasumi headed for the tea section, where she picked up several special blends that she'd never tried before because they made her favoured tea seem cheap, and that one cost several times what normal tea cost. She enjoyed taste testing them and was amazed as the complex flavours developed on her tongue. Two three hundred kilo bales of Koshihikari rice from Uonuma joined her tally as well as sixty kilos of something called Forbidden rice, the black kernels hadn't interested her at first but then she'd smelt it cooking and seen the dark colour change to a deep purple, she'd been intrigued. The flavour was rather nutty, but made a nice contrast to normal rice, not that the Koshi rice she'd brought was normal, it was after Forbidden rice the most expensive rice on the market. She'd also been informed that the dark rice was high in nutrients and minerals and that had been the clincher as far as she was concerned. By the time she walked away that evening with her friend and Mina's significant other she'd spent the money from Nabiki's stash and most of the rest of the money that she'd left behind in it as well. Nabiki wasn't going to be pleased but them's the breaks, she'd deal with that when the family returned.

It was a couple of weeks since the sale when the phone rang, she hadn't heard from Mina or her family yet so she was looking forward to chatting with either of them. The woman on the other end of the line was a stranger though, she had a pleasant speaking voice when she introduced herself.

"Good morning, I'd like to speak to Kasumi Tendo."

"This is she, how may I help you?"

"My name is Atsuko Ono."

"Oh my I hope nothing bad has happened to Tofu."

"That's why I'm calling, I'm afraid there's something I have to tell you. I just found out from my husband that he didn't call you and let you know that we were married."

"…" Kasumi gazed at the phone for a second. That was strange; she couldn't see any reason why this ladies husband should have called her to let her know they'd gotten……

"Married?" She whispered the word, but she must have been loud enough for Atsuko to hear.

"Yes, six months ago. Tofu and I were married in Sapporo."

"But…" then trailed off as nothing coherent came to mind.

"I'm sorry Miss Tendo, I didn't know about you then, and I had hoped that Tofu would call and tell you himself but he says he can't face you. Miss Tendo? Miss Tendo?" The phone slipped from Kasumi's nerveless fingers as the word 'married' reverberated around inside her head she didn't pay any attention as the phone swung from its cable just above the floor, she didn't see the front room as she walked through it and out into the garden. The house was left open as she headed for the train station, nothing mattered anymore. Now she needed to talk to someone who knew what she was going through, Mina would help her, Mina could…Kasumi sat down on a bench and stared blankly at the wall opposite her, feeling nothing, she didn't note the train approaching just reacted as she stood and pushed her way on board, twenty five minutes later she rang the bell on Mina's door, a trip she would never remember for a reason she'd never forget. The door swung open to show her friend who smiled as she saw Kasumi standing on her doorstep, but only for a second as she noted the shattered expression on Kasumi's face.

"Oh my Kami! What happened Kasumi, tell me your family's alright." She barely had time to react as Kasumi threw herself at her and enveloped her in a crushing hug that didn't feel like it would be loosened anytime soon, somehow she managed to get her arms free and return the hug on the distraught young woman and ushered her inside. Kasumi broke down completely the second the door closed behind her. It took nearly three hours for Mina to get the whole story and when she did.

"That scum…How dare he…..Leave you dangling for years……Then marries…." To say Mina was miffed would be an understatement she was a damn-sight closer to atomic detonation than merely miffed. How could any man treat her friend like that? Kasumi wouldn't hear of it though.

"He's not scum."

"Yeah he is, and I should know, I've seen enough of them. I don't know what else to call a man who'd string a girl along for years, giving her hope and then marry someone else without telling her it was happening. Maybe cretin, asshole, louse, rat, good-for-nothing bastard fits the bill better?" There, that felt better already, Mina took a deep breath to listen to her long-time friends' rebuttal but decided it wasn't worth it and interrupted before she could get too far.

"There's got to be more to it…" but she was cut off by Mina before she could make any excuses for Tofu.

"You might be right Kasumi but that's no excuse for waiting six months before you were informed about it. Would he have left you not knowing what had happened for the rest of your life? Was it some kind of ego trip for him?"

"Tofu's not like that!"

"Maybe, but I know one thing he is, and you can't dispute it Kasumi. He's a coward, it was his job to tell you not his wives, and it should have been handled face to face." Kasumi bit her lip as she thought that through, silently she agreed but deep down a stubborn voice kept butting in and telling her he wasn't. Another hour of off again on again tears and Kasumi gave into emotional exhaustion and fell asleep against her friends shoulder; Mina brushed the hair from her beautiful friends' forehead and murmured.

"There's someone out there for you Kasumi, and he's special, just like you." She lay her friend down on the couch and went to get some blankets and pillows to cover her. Over the next week Kasumi went about her life as if she'd survived the holocaust. She didn't sleep unless she was so exhausted she couldn't do anything else, eating was something she couldn't face. By the time her family returned they'd find a much slimmer version of the oldest Tendo daughter, not that anyone really noticed.

The house had never been so clean, some might think it was clean before but now they'd be disabused of that notion, she'd been relentless in eradicating even the tiniest scuff marks or stains. Not a weed or blade of grass marred the perfection that the contemplation glade in the backyard had become. Visitors tiptoed from stone to stone in case they unbalanced the delicate wa that could be felt in the previously war-torn area.

It was a phone call that saved her from becoming obsessive compulsive about it all.

"Hey Kasumi, we're on our way home." Kasumi tried to reign in her emotions as she formulated a reply, she was the strong sister, her mother had specifically asked her to be strong for her father and younger sisters and she couldn't go back on a deathbed promise. Swallowing hard she replied.

"Oh that's nice, so I'll see you in a couple of hours?" It always amazed her as to how unobservant her younger sister actually was at times. Forever on top of her various business ventures but strangely blind when it came to emotional cues from her own family. How she missed the scratched and slightly cracked tone of her voice she'd never know.

"Wrong coast, it'll take a few days from here. First chance we've had at reliable phone lines in ages. Talk more when we get home, this is chewing up the last of our money. See you later Kasumi." The click on the other end of the line told her all she needed to know. Two days to get her emotions in order, she'd do it! Wasn't she the responsible one, not even thinking for a second that the behaviour of each of the sisters was moulded by a similar conversation that had been interpreted in three different ways, and do it she did.

The rest of the family tumbled through the gate at a quarter past seven on a hazy Thursday night to be met by Kasumi's normal beaming smile. No one noticed how strained it was, or how close to the edge she was. The emotions from her abandonment were still too raw for her to deal with them fully. The only one who seemed to feel anything different was Ranma, but then he'd always been more sensitive to those around him than the others gave him credit for, and even for him it was only a vague sense of something not being right in his world. Like someone had entered a room in an obsessive compulsive's house and tilted a picture slightly, the difference didn't leap out at him but niggled in the back of his head.

Kasumi played herself masterfully; in fact she could have taken up a career on the stage with the strength of her current performance. Somehow she made it through the night; she'd even lied to Nabiki about what had happened to her secret stash of money, claiming that Happosai had been in the house while they were away. He'd done enough evil that no one even bothered to look any deeper. She only lied because she couldn't handle the fallout from something she deemed to be so trivial, not after….She crushed her pillow to her chest and cried again, something she hadn't done since she'd left Mina's place, not the great gulping sobs that would have alerted the household to her emotional state, but soft hiccups as she tried to suppress the raw emotions bottled inside her.

The morning came too soon for the matriarch of the Tendo household and was heralded by a sound she hadn't heard or particularly missed in the last five weeks as Ranma left his room in a shallow arc only to straighten her tank top as she stomped from the koi pond.

"Damn it Oyaji I thought we agreed you'd stop doing that!"

"Oh the suffering, to be graced with such a weak daughter." Genma stood in the bedroom window looking down at his bedraggled child and fought to keep in his guffaws of laughter, after all it wouldn't do to let the child know that launching him from the window was more for the expression on her face when she woke up sleeping with the fishes so to speak.

"Weak!! I'll show you weak old man!" After that any hopes of a lie in or even continuing to lay there resting was forgotten as she rushed to the window and looked down on a scene of wanton destruction, oh the humanity of it all. The delicate balance she'd achieved had been destroyed, and Kasumi was doing something she'd never done before. She fumed; an observer would almost be able to see the steam rising off of her shoulders as she stomped down to the kitchen to ready breakfast. Grabbing some packets out of the cupboard she put on the miso to simmer, not her normal made from scratch style but the instant stuff she kept for emergencies, the rice was the last of the old stuff, she'd be damned if she gave them any of the new Koshi rice until she received an apology for the damage done to her garden. Yes, her garden, father might like to play at gardening but when there was back breaking work it was always her doing it.

'Oh my, did I just?' Kasumi sat down at the table and sipped a cup of tea, savouring the flavours of her new favourite as she tried to reign in an unfamiliar emotion, this must be a week for it. First angst, despair and sorrow, and now she was right royally vexed.

Ranma walked into the kitchen from the garden ten minutes later and looked sheepishly at the oldest Tendo sister. "Sorry about the mess Kasumi, I'll try to clean it up later, or at least I'll give you a hand with the heavy stuff." Kasumi who'd been thinking dire thoughts about what she'd like to do with the two rambunctious martial artists revised her plans after that statement, the old man was toast. Ranma had just redeemed himself.

"Why thank you Ranma, that would be good," and she smiled at him, getting closer to her normal persona than the day before. Ranma frowned slightly, it wasn't close enough to fool him, but it 'was' close enough that he wasn't going to pry into her emotional state with his ki senses, after all this was Kasumi. In this house she led a charmed existence where none of the chaos and mayhem could touch her.

The panda who'd walked through the house from the front door leaving a trail of muddy footprints, shed fur and puddles of water got a totally different reaction from the girl. Kasumi didn't bother to hide the glare she directed at the older Saotome.

'What's up with her?' his sign read as she stormed from the room, he swore the light had shifted away from her for a second and the room was suddenly a much colder place than the warm welcoming room that it normally was.

No one was there to answer as Nabiki was still in bed, sleeping the sleep of the thoroughly exhausted, who knew that walking across the breadth of China before fighting an evil Phoenix monster(read watching as Ranma fought said monster) could be so tiring, not even coffee would pry her from her bed before midday.

Akane on the other hand was sitting in her room fuming, she didn't need rescuing all the time like some useless princess in one of those old fairytales she'd read as a child.

Ranma was sitting on the roof contemplating his toenails, for the first time he had a moment to sit and think about what he'd done, since walking the breadth of China while carrying two other peoples bags before he'd gotten into the fight of his life, ironically for his life, and those of all the people watching from the sidelines, promptly killed the monster and returned all in the space of five weeks. He asked himself how he was holding up and received a mocking laugh from the depths of his martial artists soul. 'Martial artists don't kill', it mocked him only to have Ranma reply, 'Yeah we do, but only when it really is the only choice, like protecting other people. I'd a died for that.' Strangely the voice was silent for the first time in nearly three weeks, maybe it was the peace he always felt when he was here but he liked to think that it was that he was finally coming to terms with what had happened. Or as was much more likely, he was just too damned tired to care. His ki reserves had never felt this depleted and it felt like it was taking forever for them to replenish so that he could get back to normal.

Soun Tendo looked up from the paper in satisfaction, yes everything was back to normal. Now all he had to do was propose his brilliant plan to get the two youngest children in the house married to his long-time friend and they'd be set. He took a moment to rephrase that last thought in his head as the thought of his daughter and Ranma marrying Genma, he couldn't suppress the shudder as what he'd thought was just wrong in his estimation. The name of the 'Anything Goes' style would be respected with Ranma acting as a figurehead, of course he was much to young to deal with the financial side of running the dojo so that would fall to the two fathers. It was only natural that wiser heads prevailed in cases like this, surely no one would begrudge them this small indulgence since they'd survived the training of the 'Master' all those years ago. Neatly forgetting that it was more than twenty years ago and he should have long since been over it.

A week passed and Kasumi watched, reduced to a mere spectator as those around her went on with their lives. No matter what she thought of it felt like this was all there was to her life. A small voice cried out at the injustice of it, but couldn't really break free of the fetters she'd placed HHHHHHHHHH

on herself. She felt worthless after Tofu rejected her, and nothing had really changed. No one took the time to make her feel like she was a part of the family anymore, she was just a glorified housekeeper, one who didn't even get the benefits of having the job. No time off, no pay, she might as well be a slave she thought with some resentment. She watched as Akane and Ranma resumed their normal state of affairs, the two fathers plotted their latest insane attempt to get the engaged couple married. Nodoka had been a surprise, she hadn't harped on at her son about the state of his manliness since he'd returned from China. Nabiki? Well no one really knew what Nabiki was up to since she'd leave for school early and arrive home late to eat dinner and then disappear into her room. Kasumi wondered if she was trying to replenish her lost funds and figured that it was the most logical assumption. All of this happened as if she wasn't even there, the only thing that kept her going was the ever cheerful Ranma as he greeted her and thanked her for the things she did for him.

Nabiki for her part had regained the lost money on the first day they returned, she'd set an arbitrary amount for the information on Ranma's whereabouts for the last month and a half and waited for the student body to come up with it. Why no one thought to ask Ranma for the information she'd never know, but who was she to look gift stupidity in the mouth. She figured the term stupid and horse was interchangeable since one had bucked her off numerous times in the foothills near Jusenkyou and she was always one to hold a grudge.

What Kasumi failed to factor into her ruminations was that Nabiki was often several steps ahead of everyone else in the house, so far in fact that a number of times she'd been left with her plans high and dry after the normal chaos that struck the household shifted events into an unanticipated direction. It should be a required course at Tokyo U she thought as it did wonders for her forward planning abilities. Nabiki had already taken into account a number of the activities of the two fathers and drawn the conclusion that there would be a 'surprise' wedding on the weekend, she made a tidy sum from that information alone, followed by the arrival of a large package from China that was promptly hidden, not nearly well enough to escape her notice though and she'd sold the information that there was 'Spring of drowned man' water available on the weekend.

Gilded invitations had been posted out to interested parties to a wedding at an undisclosed location, she could almost hear the howls of outrage when they'd sent in the required hundred thousand yen and been told that it was being held at the dojo. She smirked over that one for the entire night before the wedding.

As they'd watched the chaos unfold the next day she'd revised her opinion of the humour value of the situation, the profit from her sales had just evaporated into thin air. The dojo wouldn't need repairs so much as a total rebuild, done the traditional way as was customary it would take several months and more money than she currently had. Figuring a way to make Ranma do the work for free had been easy, watching the disappointment on her older sisters face as she'd extorted her future brother in law had been much harder, not as hard as looking out into the garden and seeing that gaping crater, or listening to her father mourn the loss of his legacy, but still it had hurt.

Kasumi was a roiling pot of unnamed emotions as she contemplated the actions of the rest of the family and Ranma's rivals on the previous day, unfair was the mildest word she thought about the whole thing. What's more after the kids had rushed off to school this morning she'd had to listen to Nodoka lament at her sons lack of anything remotely approaching manly behaviour, which prompted the her to wonder just what it was that Nodoka considered 'Manly' in the first place. A thought that was reinforced when the front gate had been smashed open and Ranma-chan had stomped into the house muttering about damned ladle toting ladies who never looked where they were throwing water.

"Ranma that's hardly manly to be in that form. Go and get changed immediately!" Nodoka looked at her sometime daughter in disapproval and was only mildly surprised when the person in question glowered at her in return.

"Manly? Is that all you ever think about?" Ranma hissed at his mother shocking Kasumi with the intensity of his reaction. Strange as it seemed Kasumi still considered him to be male no matter what form he was currently in, after all body language didn't lie.

"You won't speak to me like that young man, it's not fitting for a manly man to speak to his mother like that." Nodoka was still reeling from the chaotic events of the day before or she might not have said that to the seething red-head who stood before her. Then again, this was Nodoka so she more than likely would have no matter what happened.

"Manly! You wanna see manly, I'll show you manly! Come on Kasumi, let's hit the pillows." Reaching out he grabbed the hand of the stunned young woman beside her and started dragging her to the stairs. She was too angry to notice that Kasumi was hardly resisting the inexorable pull of his hand. He had no idea how useless she'd been feeling over the last two weeks since finding out about her beaus' desertion. The feelings of being unattractive had washed over her so many times she didn't feel like she'd ever find someone to call her own.

/ Ranma \

Ranma bolted upright on the narrow cot that had been left for him to use, his breath came out in great gasping billows as the sweat ran down his face. It's be ten or more minutes before his heartbeat returned to some semblance of normal. He'd had 'That' dream again, it was no wonder that he woke up sweating, it had easily replaced the dream about cats or phoenix kings or any number of horrible things that had been done to him in his short life. None of those made him feel like this though as he thought about it. That had been one of the most intense days of his life, ranking right up there with killing Saffron for sheer emotional intensity.

After screaming at his mother he'd dragged Kasumi up the stairs, not giving her time to protest. It was only after he'd slammed the door to the bedroom shut that he'd turned to her and apologised for pulling her into his problems. She'd just stood there looking like her usual angelic self and smiled as she demurred his apology.

"Don't worry about it Ranma, I'll be alright. You just wait here for a while." She'd slipped from the room after that and he'd decided to take her advice. He'd been surprised when she returned a few minutes later with a thermos under each arm, both of which she'd placed in the corner of the room before turning back to him.

"Hi." She said softly as she approached the diminutive red-head. Just a short step away she'd turned around and asked for assistance with the zip on her day dress. Oh boy had he swallowed at that, but he'd complied with her request, she'd never had any ulterior motives before. As his fingers brushed the nape of the taller girls neck she'd had to suppress the tingling sensation that had invaded her fingers, and the deepening of her breath as she exposed a slice of Kasumi's skin to the light of day. This was different to seeing her in a bikini somehow, tantalizing, forbidden. She'd only been asked for help with the zip as she attempted to get her heartbeat under control. Finishing the task she'd expected Kasumi to leave so she could change into whatever outfit it was she wanted to. Ranma gasped as she just turned back to him and shrugged her shoulders letting the light materiel slip down her arms and onto the floor. Underneath he'd been a little surprised to note that she wore some rather lacy underwear, stuff that wouldn't have looked out of place in a lingerie catalogue, and he knew because Happosai had shoved enough of them in his face trying to get him to wear one outfit or another.

Kasumi stood there with a smile on her face as she reviewed the reaction of Ranma before stepping in close once more, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into an embrace, resting her head atop the red curly hair at the crown of Ranma's head. She'd felt the shuddering inhalation as Ranma drew in her scent, if she'd expected nature to take it's course after that she'd be sadly mistaken as Ranma shoved her way out of Kasumi's arms.

"S-s-sorry Kasumi, I've gotta, go, yeah tha's right!" he was heading for the door when he heard the first sob, she turned round just in time to see the eldest Tendo sink to her knees with tears running down her face and to feel her heart crumble at the sight. "What's wrong Kasumi?" All thoughts of flight died a sudden death as he felt the need to get to the bottom of this. Bad thoughts she thought to herself as she ran the word bottom around in her head a few times.

"You don't like me?" Kasumi wailed.

"No! That's not it Kasumi!"

"You don't think I'm pretty." The depth of her anguish kicked up another notch as she took Ranma's rejection to heart. Here was a young man, one that was supposed to be driven by hormones to want to bed anything that moved and he'd turned her down. Rationally she knew that he had good reason for shielding her from the craziness in his life, but rationality had taken an hiatus leaving emotions in charge. Emotions knew rejection when they felt it.

"Damn it Kasumi, you're not pretty, you're damn beautiful and you know it."

"No I'm not!"

"Yes you are," Ranma stated finally.

"But you don't want me, so I can't be beautiful." Ranma looked at her in stunned disbelief, how could she ever think something like that?

"Hey I never said that! You're one of the most desirable women I've ever met." The statement started out emphatic but ended softly as if he realized just how far he'd sunk. He hadn't taken his eyes off her underwear clad body since he'd turned back into the room. He couldn't understand why his nipples felt so tight all of a sudden or why the room suddenly felt that much warmer. Her next words stunned whatever higher mental faculties he'd had left and left his emotions in charge.

"Prove it!" she'd stood up and unclasped her bra letting it slide to the floor. Ranma went for one of the thermoses on the floor only to be stopped by Kasumi's hand, "Not like that, we'll do this my way."

Her fingers had trembled a little as they'd unbuttoned the younger girls shirt, pulling it down her arms and off she dropped it to the floor leaving Ranma bare from the waist up. Un-cinching her belt Kasumi had pulled them over the wide flare of Ranma-chans hips, leaning forward she'd dipped close to Ranma's face with her breasts causing the teenager to draw in a shuddering breath.

"I have to show you something first." She'd led a naked Ranma over to the futon and laid her down on her back, after determining that Ranma-chan wasn't a virgin in the technical sense she'd shown her how it felt to be penetrated without being properly prepared. A few moments that Ranma would remember for a long time as they were incredibly uncomfortable and verging on painful.

"That's what it feels like when a man pushes his penis into a woman when she's not ready. Did you like the way that felt, did it feel good?" Ranma shook her head, she didn't want to ever feel that again, and not just because it was wrong for that to happen to a boy either. "And you don't want to do that to anyone else do you?" Ranma shook her head again, the mere thought of hurting someone like that made her feel nauseous.

"Let me show you how to do it right, okay?" Ranma didn't bother to answer as her head was too busy reeling with everything that'd happened so far today. When the larger girl had slid up her body to engage her lips in a deep searching kiss that had re-engaged her mind, what followed had culminated in a blinding flash of pleasure that had rolled through her body for minutes as Kasumi drove her closer to something she'd never felt before. When Kasumi's lips and tongue had joined in Ranma went completely over the edge, she even screamed out loud. A noise that wasn't missed downstairs by her mother, strangely enough said woman had been listening to the noises that had been coming down the stairs and had drawn the conclusion that her son was being very manly indeed.

Kasumi had left the red-head lying on the futon panting in stunned disbelief at the power of the ecstasy she'd felt, while she left to retrieve one of the thermoses, opening it she poured hot water over Ranma-chans body and watched in fascination as the changes occurred, as the baby fat disappeared leaving behind a washboard stomach, hips narrowed and breast disappeared leaving behind pectorals that most body builders would die for. Her mouth went dry as she watched a certain place grow, and grow and then some more. She'd read books on human anatomy and knew that six or seven inches was normal for a man, what she was looking at made him twice the man she'd thought he was.

What followed was in Ranma's estimation no less intense than what he'd felt before in his female body, in fact Kasumi followed the exact same path down his body. The kissing had been the same, even the duelling tongues, her mouth on his neck had drawn a groan from him, and as she enveloped one of his nipples while tracing circles around the other had felt very nice, not as intense as what he'd felt before but still it felt really good. She nipped at the tiny amount of loose skin around his navel then 'kissed' it better as she ran her tongue over the area.

In the ten minutes that it took her to travel the length of his body and back to his manhood he'd felt everything she'd done, and nothing was as intense as what had happened to his female body. He could add sex to the list of things that felt better in his female body along with ice-cream and chocolate. When her mouth found 'him' his hips bucked at the intensity of the feelings until some minutes later he let out a roar as the pleasure coursed through his body

She looked up in satisfaction as she thought about what she'd just done, there was no way he could deny she was attractive to him after that. The fact that she'd done it right was borne out in the results. She grinned as Ranma opened his eyes and looked at her, and smiled even more when his eyes widened as she stretched her arms over her. She'd looked down and said.

"My turn?" Ranma wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve this slice of heaven but he wasn't going to throw a gift like this away. He remembered everything she'd done to his girl side and decided to see if he could adapt anything he already knew to make it feel any better. The only thing that came to mind was reiki, and maybe some of the shiatsu points he knew. Deciding to give it a try he moved over Kasumi's naked body after a few minutes of exploring he felt Kasumi shudder beneath him and cry out in surprises as her orgasm washed over her, and he wasn't even finished with her left breast yet, he still had the other one and a lot of other territory to travel before he was finished, thinking on that he sank a little deeper into the soul of ice as he needed to keep control. By the time he skinned Kasumi's knickers from her body she was weeping in reaction to the feelings he'd evoked, her body went rigid when she felt his breath against her.

Kasumi screamed as the intensity of the feeling washed through her, pulling on her lover urgently she forced him up her body and grabbed his member before guiding it to her depths. Looking him in the eye she whispered, "Now."

"You sure Kasumi?" Ranma might not be very experienced but he knew that this was a big step for her to take, then sighed as she merely nodded while gritting out another "Now." The next moment she gasped in pain, as he drove full length into her, minutes passed but neither noticed as passion collided with passion and built upon the foundation of earlier action. Their breathing became laboured and the pressure built.

She'd forgotten how to breathe properly some minutes ago but now decided that breathing was a waste of time, and just let the sensations build inside her, she would have screamed as the mother of all orgasms washed over her but she didn't have any breath left for that. Ranma on the other hand roared as his own orgasm washed over. Collapsing on top of her he'd tried in vain to regain his breath so that he could support his weight. While Kasumi lay there stunned her body thrumming with the pleasure he'd instilled in her. That last orgasm had been more intense than all the others put together and she revelled in the feeling of his body lying atop hers. She reached around him and held him close feeling his body relax as he stopped trying to get up. Sleep caught the both of them unawares in its embrace as they both had very pleasant dreams.

/ Downstairs, Nodoka \

Nodoka looked up the stairs when the timbre of the voice changed to the deep husky bass of a male receiving pleasure and smiled, her son was really being manly with the eldest Tendo it seemed, the smile widened when she heard him yell out as his first orgasm washed over him.

A minute or so later a woman's voice could be heard, but it sounded totally different to what she'd heard before, which puzzled her. Something wasn't computing unless there were two women up there with her son, she smiled even wider, 'Oh so manly'. Before the realization of who that first woman might have been crashed over her, that wasn't very manly was it? The elder Saotome couldn't think of a positive spin to put on the actions she suspected her son of so she let it go, after all she'd already judged him as a man months ago when she'd realized that Ranko was Ranma. It'd taken a lot for her to adapt to that particular situation but he'd proved himself over and over, so there must have been some manly reason for him to let that happen to his girl side.

Half an hour later the noises upstairs reached a crescendo and then silence reigned. Going up stairs she'd opened the door slightly and seen her son entwined with Kasumi, sweat glistening on both of their bodies as they slept in each others embrace.

There'd be time enough later for the storm that would descend on the couple for what had happened today.

Authors note:- For any purists out there who think I just committed a crime against canon pairings I challenge you to show me proof that Kasumi and Dr Tofu are fated to be paired, likewise with Ranma and Akane. Not that I care, I write because I enjoy writing, and hope that someone out there enjoys my writing too.

If you read this chapter don't forget to review, this is very important to me as this is the first ever lemon scene I've done, and I do mean ever. So any pointers on how I could make it better, or about my writing style would be very helpful. Of course if you just want to let me know what you think of me after that scene I don't mind either.

For those wondering about how Ranma ended up in America after this, read the bit where I say the storm descends later, and it does. In the next chapter to be precise. So hold off on your curiousity until then please, I promise that all questions will be answered, probably in more detail than you'll want to know.

For those interested the rices Kasumi bought from the warehouse sale are real, they exist and can be found on wikipedia.

Koshihikari rice from Uonuma area of Niigata Prefecture is probably the most expensive rice in Japan, though not the only area it's grown Uonuma rice is said to have the best flavour of Koshi rice grown in Japan hence the hefty price tag.

Forbidden rice would be an interesting style to use for something different. Smells like popcorn when cooking, turns the water bright purple and is high in nutrients and minerals. Tastes nutty. Forbidden rice is an heirloom rice, meaning it isn't widely available, it is open pollinated and will grow from dropped seed unlike many hybrids today. It also has a history, some stories about the rice go back hundreds if not thousands of years.


	5. Chapter 5

**One Straw**

**Chapter 5**

Disclaimer:- Is there an echo in here? I could swear I heard someone say they didn't own the characters, over and over and over. Damn, damn, damn. Shut-up, shut-up, shut-up, up up up. You're an idiot, yes you are, no I'm not, yes you……

A/N just a little lime, not a lot. This took so long to write because when I got half way through I thought up another way the story could go. Both ideas are good and end up with Kasumi/Ranma but the second one was a fair bit darker. I was trying to decide which one I'd do when the time came, but then scrapped taht decision with the thought I'd do both of them. Look for chapter six to have two versions, Muwhahahahahaha!! Though I will release it as a seperate story starting at chapter 6 rather than repost the first five chapters again since they're identical stories up till that point.

Reviews (a poem)

Sometimes I pound keys night and day,

Other-times I pause to work or play,

But when I finally release what I wrote,

Sometimes it's nice to receive a thank-you note.

(Or criticism, flames, it's all grist for the mill.)

/ Tendo Dojo \

/ Seven or eight months ago \

Nabiki blinked and slowly closed the bathroom door. Since Ranma had left so early in the day she'd been able to wrap up her business early and come on home. She'd decided that since her last lesson of the day had been P.E. she'd come home and have a bath, and maybe a soak before her baby sister returned from her workout. Only the bathroom seemed to be already occupied.

Nabiki had managed to walk in on Ranma on two prior occasions and both times she'd made the observation that he was definitely eye candy, this time had been no different. She could add another tidbit to her growing knowledge of the teen as well. He was incredibly well 'hung', she knew that because he'd grasped Kasumi by the waist and lifted her up, and up, and….

Her brain short-circuited as she ran the thought through her mind again, something hadn't computed the first time, Ranma, naked? Check. Bathroom stool, check. Well hung? Check!!! Naked Kasumi impaled on….Nabiki grabbed the bridge of her nose to staunch the sudden nose bleed while her brain threw up a failure to compute message.

'What the hell?' Not wanting to be caught by her older sister spying on her, nor for Ranma to catch her for that matter she started for the outer door wearing only her bathrobe, she'd get dressed upstairs and have a bath when it wasn't quite so occupied. She needed to think about this and decide what to do before she did something rash, like rushing in and belting the pervert over the head with a blunt instrument, mentioning no names.

Reaching for the door handle she was surprised to watch it turn and slide open, revealing Akane on the far side. 'Oh this could be bad,' she thought as a little of the colour left her face.

"Hi Nabiki, did you decide to have an early bath as well?" Akane grinned being in an unusually sunny mood since she hadn't had to deal with her so called fiancé for most of the day.

"Uh, yeah, I did. But the bath is occupied at the moment. You wouldn't want to walk in on Ranma again would you?" She noted the scowl that formed on her little sisters face at the mere mention of Ranma's name, seems she'd done the right thing by inviting all the usual crazies to the wedding if Akane could still look like that after two days, even if Nabiki had done it for all the wrong reasons.

"Hah! As if I'd wanna see anything that idiot has!" Nabiki looked at her sister askance, if what she'd seen was any indication then she really had to question where Akane's preferences lay just like a lot of other people at school had been doing for a while now.

"Yeah, right. Let's go and get a snack." Nabiki moved to take her sisters arm and lead her from the room but missed as Akane shrugged her off.

The youngest Tendo walked past her and over to the inner door of the bathroom and pounded on the glass pane. "You better hurry up in there Ranma. I want a bath. You hear me?" She listened to hear any reply and after a second she heard the rhythmic sound of flesh striking flesh, repeatedly, there were other sounds as well but they were harder to understand. At least until one of them turned into a moan, a woman's moan.

"Come on Akane." Nabiki gripped her sisters wrist and attempted to drag her younger sister away only to find that Akane refused to budge.

The sounds on the other side of the door got louder for a moment and then she heard Kasumi's voice.

"Ah, yes, Ranma! Oh Kami, yes!" Then she screamed which was all the impetus that Akane's stunned mind needed as she slammed the door open, shattering the woodwork. The sight that greeted her was out of her darkest nightmares. That bastard had dragged her sister in here and was doing unspeakable things to her against her will. As usual she'd totally missed the fact that Kasumi was holding onto Ranma for dear life and didn't look like she was planning to let go anytime soon.

"RRRRAAAAANNMMMAAAAA!" Akane's aura ignited so fast it singed the ceiling tiles as she brought her mallet to bear on the pervert, ignoring the fact that if she hit him she'd have to go through Kasumi first who happened to be the closest of the pair to her.

Nabiki wasn't fast enough to interrupt her sister, and wasn't even game to try as there was too much power involved in the swing. She'd end up as the third casualty if she tried.

Ranma on the other hand had no qualms about protecting Kasumi, swiveled around on the bath stool till his back was presented to Akane, who adjusted her strike to track the pig-tailed martial artist. The force of the blow was monumental as she drove him through the stool he was sitting on and into the tiled floor beneath. Kasumi found herself suspended over empty space before plunging downwards and gasping at the sensation of being filled suddenly again, a sensation that was rapidly becoming addictive. Before she figured out what had happened and tried to cover as much of Ranma as she could.

Akane had spent much of her ire on the first swing but found that her sister was straddling the bastard and seemed to be trying to protect him from her follow up. Which didn't make her happy since she still fully intended to pound the animal through the tile and concrete floor as many times as it took to put him six feet under.

"Get away from him Kasumi, now's your chance while he's stunned!"

"No! I'm not moving, you're not going to hit him again." Kasumi looked up at her youngest sister defiantly, and for a moment the belligerent look on Kasumi's face seemed to reach the youngest Tendo. Then the moment passed as Akane shook her head to dispel the effects of her sister's potent gaze.

"You're not going to protect him Kasumi. He deserves to be pounded for what he's done to you."

"Akane stop before you make a bigger fool of yourself than you already have." Nabiki yelled frantically, she'd heard of delusional but it looked like they might have to put a picture of her sister alongside the one of Kuno in the dictionary entry for the word.

"But Nabiki she's suffering from that Stuttgart Syndrome thingy we learned about in class." Nabiki blinked for a second as she tried to comprehend what had just been said.

"Stuttgart? I think you mean Stockholm don't you?"

"Stockholm, Stuttgart? What's the difference? Whichever one it is she's got it."

"No I don't." By this time Kasumi was standing facing her two sisters with a towel wrapped loosely around her body. She'd interposed herself between Akane and the man she….she wasn't sure what she felt for him yet but she was definitely going to take the time to figure it out after this was all over.

"You don't know what you're talking about Kasumi. Now get out of the way so I can pound him like he deserves." Akane lunged forward and grabbed Kasumi by the arm and pulled her out of the way. Kasumi was sent stumbling towards the wall unable to control her stagger as she approached the wall head first. Akane for her part had already turned away and so didn't see what was happening, she had a clear shot at Ranma and she was going to take it, when he simply disappeared.

Nabiki knew things were going to go down hill rapidly as soon as her sister found out about Kasumi and Ranma in the bathroom, with the bath stool, but she had no idea how bad things would get. When Akane pulled Kasumi out of her way she was already moving to intercept, but a sleek naked man in the form of Ranma got there first and stopped Kasumi from being injured as he absorbed the impact with his body. Nabiki let out a gasp of surprise, she'd known that Ranma was fast, but that fast?

Akane swung around as she heard Nabiki gasp and spotted her quarry holding her sister yet again.

"Don't you ever learn Ranma?" She yelled as she prepared to attack again.

"Yeah! I gotta admit I made a mistake. The mistake of actually letting you hit me with that useless piece of wood." Ranma set Kasumi to one side as he confronted the woman he was supposed to marry, as if that was ever going to happen now, or ever for that matter. Silly bitch with her, 'I'll protect you Kasumi, even if it kills you!' attitude.

"I'll show you useless you bastard!" The overhead swing came down with crushing force on the space occupied by Ranma's head, she watched in satisfaction as he buckled under the pressure, just like every time before. Ranma for his part hardly felt the blow as he allowed it to push him out of the way rather than try to resist it like he normally would. He slid aside into a crouching position and looked up at the stunned expression on Akane's face.

"That's your free shot Akane, anything else and you're gonna pay for it." If Akane had been listening to the snarl in his voice she probably would have….nope not even the edge in his voice could have stalled her this time.

Nabiki who had heard the same snarl had been running high speed probabilities in her head when she suddenly twigged to something she'd been missing since it had been so subtle up to this point. "Akane stop this now before you go too far!" But the effort was wasted as a frustrated Akane swung her mallet again and gaped in shock as her target stepped into a place she couldn't adjust her aim to hit as the hammer traveled through empty space she found herself holding the object of her ire close in her arms. The cocky evil smirk should have been a warning in and of itself but she didn't have time as he lowered his head ramming his forehead into hers with a resounding crack.

Ranma had gauged the strength of his blow to do maximum damage without doing permanent damage, he just wanted to teach her a lesson not kill her. The skin on her forehead split and began to pour blood even as his follow through hit the bridge of her nose and broke it spreading it across her face, not literally of course but it was gonna hurt like the dickens when she regained consciousness. As she slipped into darkness Akane could feel the handle of her mallet slip through nerveless fingers, even heard it strike the floor as she staggered backwards and away from her attacker, she never saw the blow that struck her in the ribs and lifted her off her feet breaking five of them, or the axe-kick that picked her out of the air separating her shoulder.

Ranma could see all the damage he was inflicting on his ex-fiancée but couldn't stop himself as the pressure of repressing his anger over the last year came boiling to the forefront tingeing his sight with red. He wanted to expunge the pain and anger he'd felt at the abuse he'd suffered. Even as he screamed denial in his head another part of him screamed in primal fury wanting to tear and rend, and he almost gave in before Kasumi reversed her earlier role and came to her sisters' rescue interposing her body between the blue-black haired teen and Ranma as he sought to continue punishing Akane.

"No Ranma! That's enough!" Ranma stumbled at the force of her words, he'd never heard her speak like that before and then her heard her next words, "Go! Get out of here. You've done enough damage!"

"K-Kasumi?"

"Get out! You – you – Get out!" Kasumi left her sisters side and was pounding on his chest with her petite fists. Looking around he could see no support from Nabiki and then he looked down at what he'd done to Akane and cringed, no one was supposed to get hurt, not like this. Damn it, I'm losing it, I lost control, got to get out of here before I go off the deep end. As he bolted from the bathroom the last thing he heard was Kasumi instructing a shell-shocked Nabiki to call an ambulance.

Nodoka was heading up the stairs when a black and red blur shot past her.

"Ranma?" she yelled as she attempted to track him visually, but by time she'd turned around he was already gone.

/ Later that night \

Ranma slunk back into the Tendo compound around seven 'o'clock. Night had fallen on the quiet suburb of Nerima an hour before and the deep shadows allowed him to move stealthily around the old house. He'd already verified that the father's hadn't come back from wherever they'd spent the day. In fact the only people he knew for sure were in the house were the two eldest Tendo's, he assumed that they'd been sent home from the hospital as they were in the way or something or at least that was always Genma's excuse of why he wasn't around the few times he'd put Ranma in the hospital on their training trip.

He wasn't sure why he'd returned, he knew from the way she spoke that he'd burned his bridges this time. Kasumi, he'd never seen her upset like that before, and to tell the truth that upset him more than anything else, that he was the one responsible for her breaking down like that.

The only reason he'd come back was to take back his clothes and paltry belongings. It was so very little to show for the year he'd been here, but still much more than he'd ever had on the road.

Keeping to the shadows he headed for the guest rooms window, it was always kept open just a little to allow the various martial artists in the area access. 'Plus it beat the hell out of repairing walls all the time,' he smirked in remembrance of the fall out the last time the Amazons had come through a wall. A small flexion of his knees and Ranma was airborne in a maneuver he'd performed hundreds of times before, his fingers catching the edge of the roof while the sole of his foot slid the window across with more care than normal, a shove and he was perched on the windowsill.

The house was pretty quiet as he pulled his back-pack towards the window, things had been so crazy lately that it was still packed from the trip to China.

Ranma went still when her heard something, a voice coming from the open door. He could hear Nabiki as she comforted someone, someone who was crying. It took a moment to realize that it was Kasumi and at that point his shame increased tenfold, he'd really hurt her. He'd used her body against her will and then nearly killed her sister when she'd objected. He heard a murmur and then a sobbed reply and wondered what they were talking about. Like a wraith he moved across the room to the open door and slid through the gap into the brightly lit hallway where he could see that Nabiki hadn't closed her door properly. Following the sounds of their voices he slid along the wall using a stealth technique his father had taught him, of course it worked best if you were wearing clothes that kind of blended into the environment. His white gi would have been perfect for this hallway but he hadn't thought of that and was currently in his preferred dress of a red shirt and black pants so stood out like a beacon. Sliding along the wall he scuffed the heel of a shoe against the skirting board and froze. That sound would have alerted any of his 'friends' if they were around, Nabiki and Kasumi were probably safe though.

The room had suddenly gone quiet, and his breath stilled even as he leapt above the door bracing his hands and feet against opposite sides of the hall. The rustle of cloth confirmed his guess that Nabiki's senses were sharper than he'd at first thought, 'Must be all that spying she does.' Her head appeared in the open doorway and she looked both ways down the hall as if to ascertain if anyone was home.

/ Nabiki \

Nabiki looked up and down the hall, she could have sworn she heard something. Maybe the fathers had returned. If they had that would curtail her questioning her sister, for a while at least. Some of the more pertinent questions at the moment of course were 'What the hell possessed you?' and 'What about Tofu-sensei?'

Taking one last look she decided that if the fathers were home there'd be much more noise as both of them had gone for a social drink, which in normal parlance meant that they'd be falling down drunk and/or singing when they came home. Sighing in relief she straightened up and for just a moment caught sight of something interesting before retreating back into the room. As she did so she closed the door but a moment later it clicked back ajar as if she hadn't closed it properly.

Ranma sighed in relief as he dropped silently down to the floor again.

"What was that about Nabiki?" Kasumi looked up at her younger sister expectantly.

"Oh, it was nothing," she ignored the light thud as Ranma landed right outside the door, in a way he probably needed to hear the answer to her questions even more than she did, "I just thought I heard Father returning home."

"Oh," Kasumi sighed in relief as she felt a short lived reprieve from the oncoming interrogation.

"But it wasn't them. Now, I have some questions, and I want answers."

"I really don't want to talk about it right now Nabiki."

"Tough! You either talk to me or talk to Father."

"You wouldn't!"

"You know me better than that Kasumi, now start talking." Nabiki maintained her cool exterior as she eyed the older girl dispassionately.

"Alright! Just don't tell Father, I don't think he could take it," Kasumi paused to collect her thoughts, "Well you know what it was like after Mother died?"

"Yes, I was there remember?"

"Father wasn't any use, and Mother asked me to take care of you and Akane, so I did what I thought I needed to do. For six years I looked after you all, and the house. Over the years Father came back to us, but he was never the same, so I continued as I had been. My schooling suffered…."

"Oh, pull the other one Kasumi. I checked your results and I'm only just beating you."

"Hmm, but I was only doing minimal work, the teachers weren't impressed with, 'I'm sorry but I had to cook dinner and do the laundry.' When I handed assignments in late."

"Why didn't you say anything? I would have helped. Don't look at me like that, I'm not as bad as Akane, I could have done something."

"No, I couldn't allow it to affect you, it was my job."

"Bull! If it was anyone's job it was Dads."

"But…"

"I don't care. It's time we stopped making excuses for him, he's turned into a weak sniveling shadow."

"That's a little harsh isn't it Nabiki. He still mourns her you know?"

"Of course I know, but when do we get to mourn her Kasumi? When's it our turn to cry?"

"I don't know, I honestly don't know…" Silence hung over the room so intensely that the eavesdropper outside the door could sense the tension that wrung through the Tendo sisters.

"Alright, I knew all this. Let's cut to the chase shall we. Why Ranma? Why not Tofu-sensei?"

"You know when I met Ono Tofu?"

"Yep, I remember. You were all motherly fussing when you took Akane to the doctors. And when you returned you were a giggly blushing teenager on a sugar high." She had the satisfaction of watching her sister turn a bright shade of red.

"I did not!"

"Did too!" Nabiki stuck her tongue out.

"Did not!" Nabiki's eyes widened as she saw the pillow coming, her attempt to duck was only partially successful as the pillow clipped the top of her head. Her hands quested for something to return fire and finally picked something up. She watched as Kasumi's eyes widened slightly and looked down to find one of her sisters childhood dolls grasped in her fist. Noticing a motion out of the corner of her eye she thrust the doll out slightly and said.

"Ah-ah aaah, put the pillow down nice and slow or the doll gets it." Both sisters fought to maintain eye contact but finally gave into the giggles that were threatening to burst through. It took a couple of minutes for them both to subside without setting the other off again.

"I haven't laughed like that in a while."

"Yeah, I noticed. So after you started acting like a school girl with her first crush what happened next."

"I'll have you know, I 'was' a school girl with my first crush. It was unrequited of course but I wasn't prepared to accept that. So I admired him from afar, and tried to get close to him whenever I could."

"Oh, I feel so cheap! My own sister used me to get close to a boy!" Nabiki draped her arm over her forehead in mock distress.

"Oh, quiet you. As if you don't use anything in your power to get what you want."

"True, but we're talking about you, not me. So spill."

"I watched him all the time that I could, never really hoping that he'd ever notice me in return. Then when I hit seventeen he noticed me for the first time, or probably allowed himself to acknowledge that I had feelings for him."

"That's still a little creepy you know. He's so much older than you."

"He's not that much older than me, only ten years. Now Charlie Chaplin was creepy."

"What the hell has that to do with anything, that was the guy who did silent movies isn't it?"

"That's him. What it has to do with creepy is he was eighty when he married a younger woman."

"What's creepy about that?"

"She was sixteen, or maybe a little younger. She had a boy by him."

"Eeeeeew!!! You're right that's just plain disgusting. Alright I concede Tofu-sensei isn't that much older than you. So you spent the next two years waltzing around each other, and him waltzing around with Betty-chan." Nabiki shared a little giggle with Kasumi at the mental image that engendered.

"Well yes, but I didn't want to. I made it plain to him that if he asked….That I wanted…"

"Huh? You did? So what's with this with Ranma today?" She watched fascinated as her elder sisters skin flushed at the mere mention of Ranma

"Hold on, you need to have all the information before it makes sense."

"Okay, but I'd like to get this sorted before Genma-san and Father return from the bar."

"Oh right. Well you remember when Ranma first came?" Kasumi made to hurry on with her explanations.

"Uh-huh, as if I could forget that. He turned the logical world I'd known up till that point on its head, plus he was the first magical girl I ever saw."

"Nabiki!"

"What? Well he was," Nabiki smirked at the partially open door, "so is there a point to that question or are you just trying to distract me again?"

"Well I have to admit that I didn't want to marry him at that time, but then again neither of you seemed interested in him either." Nabiki winced slightly since she knew something her sister didn't.

"Hey, that isn't quite true you know. I was a little interested at first, but you're right mostly. I never had any intention of marrying until I had a secure financial footing. One thing Father has taught me is that a family is a great responsibility both emotionally and financially. Akane wasn't mature enough to get married either, she was having those problems at school. Definite trust issues if I ever saw them. Then there's you, you didn't think someone younger than you would be interesting or mature enough."

Kasumi blushed as Nabiki recalled her own words for her, "Well that's not quite true you know."

"You certainly passed the buck fast enough sister mine."

"It wasn't for the reasons I stated though. I'd been waiting for Tofu-sensei for four years to get over whatever his problem was, and then comes along this boy who I'm suddenly told is my fiancé. I panicked and did the first thing that came to mind."

"Now you're being honest? Why did you panic?"

"Maybe panic is the wrong word, I used to think Tofu-sensei was all I ever wanted…."

"I'm sensing a, 'but' in there."

"But then I saw Ranma for the first time. I'd waited so long for my first love and here was a man who…."

"Oh Kami, just spill would you? This is like pulling nails out of wood with your bare fingers."

"I felt something for him."

"Who Tofu, I thought we'd already covered that?"

"Not Tofu, Ranma. I looked at him and I felt something, and it scared me."

"Oh come on, then why'd you pass up an opportunity to get to know him?"

"Because of Tofu-sensei."

"You keep calling him that sis, why?"

"I'm getting there Nabiki, patience was never one of your strong points was it."

"Yes it was. Alright, sometimes I want answers and I want them now but I can wait if I have to. You know that."

"Sure you can," Kasumi said sarcastically, "Ranma scared me, not because he changed, but because what I felt when I saw him for the first time dwarfed everything I'd ever felt for Tofu…san."

"You were attracted to him?"

"Oh come off it, I'm a girl, and I know I still have a pulse. Of course I was attracted, what's not to be attracted to? He was a good looking man with an incredible physique. Who wouldn't be interested?"

"Well Akane for one."

"Don't kid yourself Nabiki, she was interested alright. The problem was she couldn't get past her mistrust of men to actually do something about it. Me? I wasn't ready to give up on Doctor Tofu, not yet anyway….." Kasumi trailed off as the pain she'd suppressed so far came back, it wasn't anywhere near as devastating as she expected and wondered to herself what that meant.

"You weren't ready to give up…yet? You said yet."

"Hmmm….? Oh that, well you'll remember that Tofu-sensei left about a year ago?"

"Yeah. The replacement doctor's not anywhere near as good. That was a really shoddy thing he did leaving without letting you know where he was going."

"Well it's not quite true that he left without telling me what was happening. He sent me a letter that told me he needed some space so he could get control of whatever was wrong with him. He said we could never have a proper relationship while he couldn't even hear my name mentioned and retain his sanity."

"So he told you where he was going? You dark horse you!"

"No, he wouldn't tell me where he was going. He just left. I should have known then that it was over, but I'd been waiting for so long that to give up would mean I'd wasted all that time."

"Whoa, whoa, hold up a second. What do you mean by 'You should have known it was over.'?"

"I thought you were the smart one Nabiki. 'I just need some space.' Or 'Let's take a break.' Do they sound familiar?"

"You've got a point, that's just what he was doing wasn't it?"

"I don't really know, but about a week before you and the others returned from China I received an apologetic call from a lady."

"Alright where does that slot into the story?"

"She was Tofu's wife. They'd been married for six months when she called. She said that she believed her husband had called me and let me know."

"That coward! No wonder you've been acting so strange since we came back."

"I honestly didn't think anyone had noticed."

"I happen to know for a fact that Ranma did."

"He did?"

"Hm, I noticed him looking at his food strangely a few times since we've been back and then he looks at you with a worried frown. I didn't notice it myself until Ranma did, but there was something missing that I couldn't put my finger on."

"He noticed?" Kasumi asked hopefully.

"Of course he did, it had to do with food didn't it?" Nabiki snickered before she wiped at a tendril of sweat that ran down her forehead. The forlorn look on Kasumi's face lightened for a moment before she frowned slightly.

"Nabiki? Is it getting warmer in here or am I imagining things?" That was when it clicked for the middle Tendo and she flicked a glance at the door to see an eerie orange glow seeping from the landing.

"Uh, no! Not at all Kasumi, you must be imagining it. Though, I, sure, am, 'angry' right, now. I wish, I 'knew', the soul, of ice, that Ranma, learned." The change was almost instantaneous as the fiery aura outside the door turned to something else and for an instant she could almost see her breath on the air until Ranma found his balance again.

/ Ranma \

Ranma had been listening in fascination for a while. He was hoping to figure out what had possessed Kasumi of all people to jump him like that. So far it'd been really eye opening, and it'd been really interesting to find out that all three of the Tendo daughters had been interested in him and the reasons why they passed him off or fought the engagement so strongly.

Kasumi's frank admission that she found him attractive had him blushing, and the confession from Nabiki that she liked him too had almost floored him since the 'Ice Queen' could be pretty viscous in her money making schemes.

The thought that Akane liked him was really nothing new, he'd known that she did, pretty much from the start since auras didn't lie well not unless you were a really accomplished ki adept, which she wasn't. The problem was that he'd known her for long enough, and more importantly she'd known him long enough to know that he wasn't like the idiots at school and would never hurt her like that. Of course all of that became moot when he dropped the beat down of the decade on her in the bathroom earlier. He cringed when he thought about that, he knew better but he just couldn't control the rage that had built up in him at the time.

'Huh?' Ranma stopped his internal monologue and listened to the conversation going on inside the room when he heard Kasumi's next words.

"….."

"She was Tofu's wife. They'd been married for six months when she called. She said that she believed her husband had called me and let me know." Ranma gave the door a hard look; he had to have misheard that. No way could Doc Tofu do something like that. But…..Kasumi……She wouldn't, couldn't lie about anything as serious as that.

Thinking back Ranma couldn't remember anything that Doc had said that gave away his marital status. There'd been an indiscernible difference in the man but he'd only seen him four times in the last five months, just when things got too much for him to handle. Since the man was an accomplished martial artist fully capable of hiding himself from another's senses Ranma hadn't been able to figure out what was different. 'But married? He could have….no damn that, he should have told me! Screw that, he should have told Kasumi!!'

It didn't take long for Ranma to hit the roof figuratively speaking, 'That bastard hurt Kasumi!!'

A year ago Genma would have told anyone that the 'boy' had perfect control of his anger and that anything he showed to an opponent was exactly that, a show. If he could see his son now thought there'd be no way that he could say such a thing without it being known for a bald faced lie. Ranma's thoughts ran in tight little circles of 'could'a, should'a, would'a done' if only he'd guessed. He was so bound up in the emotional loop caused between his anger and Kasumi's sense of betrayal that he nearly missed Nabiki's exaggerated statement about being angry and wishing she knew the 'Soul of Ice'. Trying to figure out what she was talking about only took a moment as he found the paint on the door in front of him had started to bubble while the varnish on the wood floor at his feet was actually smoking.

"Oops!" he whispered vehemently. A moment later he clamped down so hard with the aforementioned 'Soul of Ice' technique that frost began to form around him. Pulling back emotionally he quickly found a balance before doing anything else that might cause damage to the hallway. Another thing he'd figured out was that somehow Nabiki knew he was out here, not that he should be surprised after all the time he'd known her.

/ Kasumi's room \

Nabiki smirked as Ranma regained control of his emotions. She'd figure out what it meant later, for now she had answers to get.

"So what, you're saying is you decided to jump Ranma on the rebound?"

"No!" Kasumi exclaimed, then thought about it, "I don't know….maybe….but I…" she trailed off at the speculative gleam in her sisters eye.

"So, just anyone would have done?"

"No!" This time Kasumi glared at the middle Tendo, "It wasn't like that!"

"Well explain it to me then, cause it sure seems like it to me." Her curiosity was truly piqued, so was Ranma's if she were any judge. She could almost feel him straining to hear her sisters explanation.

"I've been waiting for so long, all my life I suppose. I waited for things to get better, I waited for Akane to grow up and for you to do more with your abilities to organize. For father to stop mourning mother and begin teaching again. So many things I've waited for Nabiki. The one thing I was sure I wouldn't have to wait much longer for was Tofu-sensei. I refused to go on dates with other boys, in fact I've rarely gone out at all except for the shopping," Nabiki felt a slight twinge of guilt as she remembered all the times she'd slunk out of the house with a cheery wave and not even a thought about the chores she'd left for her sister to do, "Then I received that call, I felt…I felt so much. I hurt, for the first time I felt so much pain. It hurt nearly as much as when mother died. It made me much angrier though," Kasumi frowned as she remembered .

"Huh? You were angry at mom?"

"Yes. She left us and I was angry, even though I 'knew' it wasn't her fault. Tofu doesn't have that excuse though, eh knew I was waiting for him…" she attempted to scrub the tears from her eyes, "he could have told me himself." The tears rolled down her cheeks in an almost continuous stream now and her shoulders shook as she fought to contain the emotions she'd held in check for more than half her life.

"Oh sis, I had no idea," Nabiki reached over and engulfed her big sister in a hug, for the first time the comforting embrace was on the other person and she wouldn't let her down, "Just let it all out."

"He's gone…I had one chance….and now he's gone."

"Don't you worry about Tofu-baka, he's not worthy…."

"Not him, Ranma…." Kasumi couldn't continue as her emotions washed over her once again. The two sisters would be there for a long time that night, unfortunately Ranma was gone.

/ Ranma \

Ranma knocked on the door, the sound of his pounding fist echoed around the neighbourhood. Off in the distance a dog barked for a moment before its owner silenced it. Ranma waited impatiently for the door to be opened. He didn't relax when a light came on downstairs, in fact he tensed up even further. The door opened in front of him revealing the person he'd come to see.

"Hold on, where's the emerg….Ranma? Do you know what time it is?" Dr Tofu took a step back as he noted the look in the young mans eyes. Dropping his bag he took a second step and waited for something. It wasn't long before he got what he wanted.

The first strike, turned out to be a feint, as were the second, third and fourth. The fifth was blocked squarely, but the doctor didn't see the front snap kick coming it was that fast, he did however note the burgeoning pain in his chest, and the fact that Ranma wasn't finished. He'd always known the boy was good, but this was the first time he was really seeing him fight. He thrust an arm out to delay Ranma's next attack only to have it held and used against him. Ranma pulled the larger man off balance then flipped him into one of the external walls.

Tofu Ono's eyes widened as he scrambled out of the way of a descending heel kick. Regaining his feet he tried to solidify his defenses only to have the youth bypass them as if they didn't exist. His shoulder caught the older man in the diaphragm and lifted him off his feet. A moment later he slammed into another wall, with a rumble the wall gave tumbling them into the examination room beyond and he found himself looking up into the cold eyes of Ranma.

The pig-tailed boys eyes flickered for a moment as they noticed the approach of a woman he hadn't seen before. She was petite, and rather pretty, her eyes however were wide and her skin too pale as she ran towards him. Looking down he noticed for the first time the blood seeping from numerous cuts and scrapes on his one time friend.

"Please! Don't hurt him…."

"We're finished," Ranma said flatly. "You could have told me about her Tofu." His chin indicated the woman who'd entered the room and was hovering a few feet away.

"I thought you kn…." Ranma cut off his words when he slammed his fist into the floor beside his head. The concrete powdered under the force and he breathed in the fine dust causing him to cough, an action he regretted as it reminded him of his ribs.

"Don't lie to me….You know me better than that." Tofu Ono blinked, he hadn't expected Ranma to be so honest about his short-comings. "Failing telling me, I know for a fact you should have told Kasumi." The growl was back in his voice as he glared down at the doctor.

"I know, I….I didn't think she'd wait for me."

"Bullshit! She waited five years for you, what made you think anything had changed?"

"I thought you'd understand, my mother arranged our marriage without telling me." Ranma paused for a moment to take in the words he'd just heard.

"Okay, I'll give ya that doc. Care to explain why you left Kasumi hanging? When I left the Tendo's she was crying her heart out. Just a few words and she'd have been able to close that part of her life. Instead she feels worthless, and it's your fault."

"It's not like you have room to talk Ranma. You're the one with multiple fiancées."

"Yeah, the difference is I didn't arrange them. I never lead them on giving them hope when there was none. Everything about my situation happened to me, not because of me. I've tried everything I can think of to get out of the situation, even talked to specialists. Not even they could help. The only option they offered was to sit in the middle until one or more parties gave up. You ain't got no excuses like that, you should have told her."

"But….I…."

"You should have told her!" Ranma growled, for a moment his ki flashed red.

"You're…."

"You know that no matter what you say this isn't over don't you? Nabiki ain't gonna let this go that easy. You hurt her sister, you can bet she's gonna make someone pay." He watched in satisfaction as the man he'd come to respect in the time he'd spent in Nerima blanched at the realization of just how deep, deep was.

"What….?"

"I hear Australia's nice, then again even that might not be far enough. Here you're gonna need this." Ranma took the wad of yen bills the doctor had given him and threw them on his chest as he rose to his feet. "As for me, well I'm gonna earn my own way. I couldn't take money from someone I don't respect."

Atsuko Ono knelt next to her husband checking his cuts and bruises as he watched the young man he respected above all others in areas of the art walk away for the last time. "Kami, what have I done?"

"It'll be alright husband, we'll get through this somehow."

/ LAX interview room 6 \

/ Present time \

"Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen, if you'd please take a seat at one of the empty desks we'll get started."

The group of men and women shuffled into the seats as they'd been asked and looked up expectantly at the man in uniform at the front of the room.

"Thankyou, now if you'd open the folder in front of you and extract the topmost document please. Read it and sign each clause and sub-clause. If you find you don't or can't agree to anything on that document then you may depart this room without repercussion. Please begin." For the next half an hour all that was heard was the rustling of paper and the occasional scratch of pen on paper. When the last person looked up waiting expectantly for him to continue an adjutant walked around the room collecting the papers and checking that everything was in order.

Andrew Simons looked on at the thirty or so people in his briefing room and sighed, he'd been told he'd need to find a competent psychiatrist, and god knows he'd been trying. This was the second group he'd interviewed and to be honest he was getting frustrated, the pay for the job was more than excellent, there were even benefits that went beyond having the gratitude of their government, and yet there were still no takers.

The adjutant looked up at Andrew and nodded that everyone had signed and they were good to go.

"Now that the formalities are completed, I'd like to thank you for coming. My name is Agent Simons, but you can call me Agent Simons." He smiled around the room to let them know he was joking, well mostly. "You're probably wondering why you've been called here today? Well we'll get to that in a moment. Firstly I'd like to mention that your names were pulled up in a list of the top one hundred practitioners in your field, this is the second group to be brought in here. This in no way reflects on your ability as the list was collated alphabetically and not in any order of who we thought was a better psychiatrist."

"You Ladies and Gentlemen are the second group of thirty as I said to be brought here, and if one of you doesn't volunteer for this assignment we'll bring in the last forty. This assignment has top priority as it is cleared by the President himself. Anything you learn in this room is strictly confidential and as per section eighteen of the document you just signed punishable to the full extent of the law if you break that code of silence. Are we clear on this?"

Agent Simons looked around the room at the nodding heads and quietly murmured yeses from the people present. He also noted the frowns on several of the faces and took the time to mark them for later review.

"Good, now please open the folder again and remove the top-sheet. This young man is Ranma Saotome, the next photograph is also of Ranma Saotome. Before anyone asks, yes they are the same person. How? Well that we'll leave for later in this briefing. One thing I can assure you of is that I have seen both of these forms and know for a fact that I was not misled or tricked in any way." He stopped as he waited for the murmurs of disbelief to subside before continuing.

"Please save any and all questions until after you have received full disclosure. We are hoping to find one of you worthies capable of aiding in the treatment of this youth. Before anyone makes a decision, I am required to inform you that this case may be dangerous. If that fact influences your decision then I suggest you leave now." Watching in disappointment he noted that a couple of the people who'd frowned had gotten up and were leaving.

"Alright, this story goes back thirteen years, I'll only hit the high notes at this time. There is a much more detailed file prepared for the person who accepts the job. This all started…" Agent Simons spoke for the next half an hour, he neither paused nor deviated from the material he had to cover, not even when several members of the crowd gasped or cried out in dismay.

"As you can see the young man has been put through the nine circles of hell and for the most part he's come out sane. How I'll leave up to you professionals to figure out. There is a further problem and this is what we were referring to when we said this job may be dangerous. Ranma Saotome is believed to be suffering from Combat Fatigue." Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing, some even stopped breathing as they realized just what he meant and how dangerous, dangerous really could be.

"Please come with me, we have one more thing to show you before we ask you to make a decision." He exited the room and waited for them to follow, the expression on his face resigned as the ten remaining people followed him out of the room. The knowledge that they'd have to call up the third group weighed heavily on his mind, and why they'd make a different decision to the first two groups was beyond him. "If you'll follow me please."

The corridor wasn't long and only had a few non-descript doors on either side, then they were led out into an office area that'd been cordoned off. The partitions that separated the cubicles had mostly been smashed flat by some force and there was quite a bit of rubble strewn around the room. All in all it looked like one of those post apocalyptic movies where the survivors traveled through an abandoned office building. The floor was waterlogged and most of the lights around the doorway ahead had been knocked out, not to mention the wall beneath them.

She paused as Agent Simons described the battle that had gone on here. How young Mr. Saotome had taken down an experienced SWAT team even though he was unarmed at the time. She noted that as the battle moved towards its conclusion that more and more of her colleagues had turned and walked away leaving only three people including herself to listen to the dramatic end.

The big man looked around, and she could see his disappointment as he surveyed the few people left, and even as he looked around one of those left.

"So any questions?" he looked between the two people that were left, which he had to admit was better than the first group who'd all been gone before he'd even gotten half way through the 'Battle of interview room one'

The young man looked at him and asked the burning question on his mind.

"Are you sure there won't be any repercussions if I leave?" while swallowing nervously, Agent Simons realized that the young man would have been gone a lot sooner if he had believed the reassurance he'd been given right at the start of the briefing.

"That's right, there won't be any consequences if you choose not to accept this job." The man didn't even wait till he'd finished speaking before leaving.

"Well John I suppose we'd better get the last group in. If one of them doesn't accept I don't know what we'll do."

"Ahem!" The sound of a throat being cleared spun Agent Simons around and he found himself looking at someone who decidedly wasn't a John.

"I'm sorry I didn't know there was anyone left. Can I help you?"

"Yes, you could answer a question for me."

"And what would that be?"

"What's in this for me? Other than recognition and the undying gratitude of my government that is? Neither of which put food on my table or a roof over my head if you catch my drift."

"Er, well that will only be covered if you're accepting the job as we don't wish that to be a concern in your decision making process."

"Bullshit. You forget my job is reading people. Just tell me already and save us a heap of hassle, or I could just walk like everyone else?" she raised an eyebrow in query.

"Alright I suppose it won't hurt, apart from the things you mentioned there was also a remuneration package of fifteen thousand dollars a week to a total of half a million. A bonus that doubles that amount for a verified complete cure and assistance to set up an office to your specification anywhere in the country with a budget set aside by the government that I won't divulge at this time. Can you think of anything else you'd like?" he added facetiously.

"Hmmm, how about a Mercedes Maclaren SLR?" her return sally was equally facetious as she thought she was being taken for a fool. Then she watched as he held a hand up to his ear and murmured something too low for her to hear.

"Uh-huh, okay. Yes sir, I'll let her know." Looking up he looked into her chocolate brown eyes and asked. "My boss wants to know if you have a preference for colour?"

"Huh?" Was the stunned answer as her mind refused to wrap around the fact she had been taken seriously when in truth she'd only heard her brother in law talking wistfully about the car the week before.

"The car, the choice is silver, red or black. So which would you prefer?"

"Er black?" By this stage she was sure someone was having a joke at her expense, her brother told her how much one of those cars was worth and she knew she could buy a house for that and have change leftover for furniture. His hand went back to his ear.

"It'll take a couple of days, but it'll be delivered to Edwards Air Force base about the same time we introduce you to Mr. Saotome. Are you interested?"

"To tell you the truth, the car was…." She trailed off as she thought about it for a second more and wondered, 'why not take it', "Yes, yes I am interested. Maybe you could explain though why you're willing to spend so much to have this done?"

"It's simple, Ranma Saotome is unstable, he's on American soil and he's close to one of the largest test facilities for experimental aircraft in the world. Even if he weren't in a position to cause potentially billions of dollars worth of damage to that facility, he wouldn't be safe anywhere else either. We want him made safe as soon as possible and are willing to pay for it. Does that clear it up for you?"

"Well yes, but still that's a lot of money."

"Not when you consider the risks to you personally. Of course if he does snap then you probably won't have time to worry about it."

"Oh thanks. Are you trying to frighten me off now?"

"No ma'am, simply making sure you understand just how serious this is. If you'd like to come with me?" He placed his hand under her elbow and ushered her from the room.

"By the way what's your name?"

"Ameline," he looked at her as if waiting for her to continue, "Ameline Potrescu."

"Pleased to meet you Mrs. Potrescu."

"Miss." She'd taken the time to notice a few things about the man who'd led the briefing, the fact that he was probably married to his career, either by personal choice or the fact that he hadn't been actively looking for a different relationship.

"I'm sorry?"

"It's Miss, I'm not married." Her Latina features lit up with mirth at the surprised expression on his face.

"Is that right, I'll have to remember that Miss Potrescu. Well now that we're properly acquainted how about I take you out for coffee?"

"Coffee? That sounds nice," she smiled as she noted the lack of a ring on the hand that held her elbow, "I hope it won't be too much trouble for you?"

"Oh none at all I assure you. I figure the sooner we get to know one another the better, for our future working relationship of course." He turned a roguish smile on her.

"Oh, of course. Just so you know, I'm on to you, Mr. Simons. You just want to get your hands on my…..Maclaren." Ameline decided to add his laugh to the plus side of the column along with his height, broad shoulders and rugged good looks. On the minus side was the fact that he was Anglo, papa wouldn't approve, but then again papa was always going on about prejudice and racism. She gave him another speculative look before turning her eyes back the way they were going. Coffee sounded really good at the moment, everything else could wait.

/ Ranma's place \

Ranma bolted upright in the narrow cot, the sweat ran down his face as he noted the heat and used the 'Soul of Ice' like an air-conditioner. Closing his eyes he tried to figure out what had disturbed him. Reaching out with his senses he found nothing until he reached about nine hundred metres, where he encountered two human sized ki sources. That was when he heard the crackle of the radio again,

"Come in Ranma. Are you there?" He reached over and fumbled with the handset, they'd shown him how to use it before they left.

"Yeah I'm here. Who is this?"

"We met a couple of days ago. The name's Andrew Simons. Do you remember me?"

"Yeah I remember you Agent Simons, what can I do for ya?"

"I have someone here for you to meet."

"Come on in. Why didn't you just turn up though?"

"We didn't want to approach while you were asleep."

"Er how long have I been out?" Ranma asked absentmindedly as he scratched under his arm.

"We've been trying to raise you for two days now."

"Two days?" he asked increduously, 'I haven't had more than a couple of hours sleep a night for months now,' he thought before asking again, "Two days?"

"Yes. It's probably a good thing you slept so long."

"Who was that Simons-san?"

"You remember we said we'd supply help for your situation?"

"Yeah." Ranma got off the cot and stretched for a moment before heading for the box of MRE's he'd been left with. They tasted bad, but he knew you could live off them if you had to.

"Well this is the person we've chosen to help you. Her name is Ameline, Ameline Potrescu. Is it alright if I bring her in?"

"Yeah sure, could ya give me a minute? I'd just like to grab a shower first."

"That won't be a problem Ranma. Would twenty minutes do?"

"Sounds good."

"We'll see you then." Ranma heard a faint click as Andrew Simons cut the connection. Then he headed for the shower.

/ To be continued... \


End file.
